Symmetry breaking and a dynamical property of a dipolar Bose–Einstein condensate in a double-well potential

• We investigate the symmetry breaking of a dipolar Bose–Einstein condensate.
• The anisotropy of dipolar interaction affects the ground state structure.
• Tuning the scattering length can realize the symmetry breaking phenomena.
• Increasing the barrier height can realize the symmetry breaking phenomena.

We investigate the properties of a three-dimensional (3D) dipolar Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) in a double-well potential (DWP). The symmetry breaking and self-trapping (SBST) phenomena that the original symmetric ground state is replaced by a new asymmetric one and localized in one of the wells are demonstrated for Dy164 atoms in the 3D DWP by means of numerical solutions of the Gross–Pitaevskii (GP) equation. The results show that the SBST properties are affected dramatically by the magnetization direction for purely dipolar BEC. The SBST under various scattering lengths are also studied. In addition, the dynamical picture of the SBST induced by a gradual transformation of the single-well potential into a double-well is also illustrated.