We describe a pairing mean-field theory related to the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov approach, and apply it to the dynamics of dissociation of a molecular Bose-Einstein condensate into correlated bosonic atom pairs. We also perform the same simulation using two stochastic phase-space techniques for quantum dynamics—the positive-$P$ representation method and the truncated Wigner method. By comparing the results of our calculations we are able to assess the relative strengths of these theoretical techniques in describing molecular dissociation in one spatial dimension. An important aspect of our analysis is the inclusion of atom-atom interactions, which can be problematic for the positive-$P$ method. We find that the truncated Wigner method mostly agrees with the positive-$P$ simulations, but can be simulated for significantly longer times. The pairing mean-field theory results diverge from the quantum dynamical methods after relatively short times.

• Received 10 November 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.79.053632