STABILITY OF BLOCH OSCILLATIONS IN TWO COUPLED BOSE–EINSTEIN CONDENSATES

We investigate analytically the stability of Bloch waves at the boundary of the first Brillouin zone in two coupled Bose–Einstein condensates confined in an optical lattice. Contrary to the single component case, we find here two critical density regimes which determine the stability of the Bloch waves. Breakdown of Bloch oscillations appear when n1/n2 C1 or when n1/n2>NC2, here NC1 and NC2 are some critical values of n1/n2. There is an intermediate regime between NC1 and NC2 where the Bloch oscillations are stable and the condensates behave like single particles.