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Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics

Modulational instability and its suppression for Bose–Einstein condensates under magnetic and optical lattice trapping

Andrea Trombettoni, P. G. Kevrekidis, Hector E. Nistazakis, D. J. Frantzeskakis

Published May 10, 2006• 10 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The modulational instability of the discrete nonlinear Schrodinger equation, describing the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates in deep optical lattices, is examined in the presence of a superimposed harmonic confinement. We obtain an interval of values of the trap frequency where suppression of the modulational instability can be achieved. The trap frequency thresholds are obtained for a specific, experimentally realistic setup in which the sign of the interatomic scattering length is changed through a Feshbach resonance. Analogies and differences with the continuous limit are highlighted.

DOI
10.1088/0953-4075/39/10/s22

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The modulational instability of the discrete nonlinear Schrodinger equation, describing the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates in deep optical lattices, is examined in the presence of a superimposed harmonic confinement. We obtain an interval of values of the trap frequency where suppression of the modulational instability can be achieved. The trap frequency thresholds are obtained for a specific, experimentally realistic setup in which the sign of the interatomic scattering length is changed through a Feshbach resonance. Analogies and differences with the continuous limit are highlighted.
We investigate the modulational instability of nonlinear Schrödinger equations with periodic variation of their coefficients. In particular, we focus on the case of the recently proposed, experimentally realizable protocol of Feshbach Resonance Management for Bose–Einstein condensates. We derive the corresponding linear stability equation analytically and we show that it can be reduced to a Kronig–Penney model, which allows the determination of the windows of instability. The results are tested numerically in the absence, as well as in the presence of the magnetic trapping potential.
We explore the dynamics of a Bose–Einstein condensate created in the combined potential of a far-detuned laser standing wave superimposed to a 3D harmonic magnetic potential. We report the investigation of low-lying collective modes showing that the macroscopic dynamics along the optical lattice is strongly modified, resulting in a shift of the dipole and quadrupole mode frequencies depending on the height of the optical lattice, whereas the transverse breathing mode, occurring perpendicularly to the lattice axis, is not perturbed. The experimental findings are compared with the theoretical treatment that generalizes the hydrodynamic equation of superfluids for a weakly interacting Bose gas to include the effects of the periodic potential. We show that the array of condensates trapped in the optical wells and driven by the harmonic magnetic potential is equivalent to an array of Josephson junctions. In the regime of ‘small’ amplitude dipole oscillation the system performs a collective motion and we investigate the current–phase dynamics measuring the critical Josephson current. Increasing the amplitude of the dipole oscillation, we observe a transition from the coherent oscillation (superfluid regime) to a localization of the condensates in the harmonic trap (‘insulator’ regime). The onset of the coherent regime breakdown is interpreted as the result of a discrete modulational instability occurring when the velocity of the centre of mass of the system is larger than a critical velocity proportional to the tunnelling rate between adjacent wells.
We study the stability of the continuous waves in the pancake shaped dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate trapped in the strong optical lattice potential with the coexisting local (the short-range s-wave) interaction and nonlocal (the dipole-dipole) interactions between the condensate atoms.The system is modeled by two two-dimensional discrete models derived from the Gross-Pitaevskii equation accounting the dipole-dipole interactions: discrete nonlinear Schrödinger equation with cubic nonlinearity and nonpolynomial Schrödinger equation.The corresponding dispersion relations are calculated analytically and the regions of the modulation instability in the parametric space are summarized into the stability diagrams.
We study theoretically the superfluidity and stability of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) whose interatomic scattering length is periodically modulated with optical Feshbach resonance. Our numerical study finds that the properties of this periodic BEC are strongly influenced by the modulation strength. When the modulation strength is small, only the Bloch waves close to the Brillouin zone edge suffer both Landau and dynamical instabilities. When the modulation strength is strong enough, all Bloch waves become dynamically unstable. In other words, the periodic BEC loses its superfluidity completely.
An experimentally realizable scheme of periodic sign-changing modulation of the scattering length is proposed for Bose-Einstein condensates similar to dispersion-management schemes in fiber optics. Because of controlling the scattering length via the Feshbach resonance, the scheme is named Feshbach-resonance management. The modulational-instability analysis of the quasiuniform condensate driven by this scheme leads to an analog of the Kronig-Penney model. The ensuing stable localized structures are found. These include breathers, which oscillate between the Thomas-Fermi and Gaussian configuration, or may be similar to the 2-soliton state of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation, and a nearly static state ("odd soliton") with a nested dark soliton. An overall phase diagram for breathers is constructed, and full stability of the odd solitons is numerically established.
We present how to control interactions between solitons, either bright or dark, in Bose-Einstein condensates by synchronizing Feshbach resonance and harmonic trap. Our results show that as long as the scattering length is to be modulated in time via a changing magnetic field near the Feshbach resonance, and the harmonic trapping frequencies are also modulated in time, exact solutions of the one-dimensional nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation can be found in a general closed form, and interactions between two solitons are modulated in detail in currently experimental conditions. We also propose experimental protocols to observe the phenomena such as fusion, fission, warp, oscillation, elastic collision in future experiments.