Bose-Hubbard dimers, Viviani’s windows and pendulum dynamics

The two-mode Bose-Hubbard model in the mean-field approximation is revisited emphasizing a geometric interpretation where the system orbits appear as intersection curves of a (Bloch) sphere and a cylinder oriented parallel to the mode axis, which provide a generalization of Viviani’s curve studied already in 1692. In addition, the dynamics is shown to agree with the simple mathematical pendulum. The areas enclosed by the generalized Viviani curves, the action integrals, which can be used to semiclassically quantize the N-particle eigenstates, are evaluated. Furthermore, the significance of the original Viviani curve for the quantum system is demonstrated.