Period-doubled breathing in trapped Bose-Einstein condensates

The response of a trapped Bose-Einstein condensed gas to a periodic driving force is studied theoretically in the framework of the nonlinear Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The monopole mode is driven by periodical modulation of the frequency of the isotropic harmonic trapping potential. Period-doubled motion is shown to occur when the driving is strong and close to resonance with the monopole mode. A variational model predicts chaotic oscillations but is found to disagree with the full solutions to the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.