Quantum control in spinor Bose condensates

Summary form only given. The optical trapping of sodium Bose condensates has opened the possibility to study spinor condensates which have their hyperfine spin as a new degree of freedom. They represent a superfluid system with a vector order parameter. A host of novel phenomena have been predicted. A spinor condensate such as the one realized by Stamper-Kurn et al. involves all three hyperfine states in the lowest energy f=1 manifold and thus poses challenges towards the understanding of the low energy properties and dynamics of such systems. We consider a Bose condensate which contains atoms with three internal spins in a cigar-shaped trap and approximate the wavefunction of the spin state.