We describe the process of formation of vector solitary waves in Bose-Einstein Condensates located in optical lattices. The two components of the vector correspond to the envelope of the condensate mean field wavefunction in the Wannier basis of the first and second bands.
We demonstrate the existence of a new class of two-component vector solitary waves in which dispersion coefficients have of opposite signs. Stability is achieved by inclusion of an additional linear coupling between the vector components that counterbalances the instability produced by the mixed dispersion and the non-linearity. In addition, we demonstrate that these solutions are experimentally observable as gap vector solitons in Bose-Einstein condensates located in oscillating optical lattices. The proposed experiment falls well within the standard experimental procedures for generating gap solitons in today's laboratories.
We present a detailed description of the formation of bright solitary waves in optical lattices. To this end, we have considered a ring lattice geometry with large radius. In this case, the ring shape does not have a relevant effect in the local dynamics of the condensate, while offering a realistic setup to implement experiments with conditions usually not available with linear lattices (in particular, to study collisions). Our numerical results suggest that the condensate radiation is the relevant dissipative process in the relaxation towards a self-trapped solution. We show that the source of dissipation can be attributed to the presence of higher-order dispersion terms in the effective mass approach. In addition, we demonstrate that the stability of the solitary solutions is linked with particular values of the width of the wave packet in reciprocal space. Our study suggests that these critical widths for stability depend on the geometry of the energy band, but are independent of the condensate parameters (momentum, atom number, etc.). Finally, the nonsolitonic nature of the solitary waves is evidenced showing their instability under collisions.
It is known that solitons of Bose-Einstein condensates with positive scattering lengths can be produced in optical lattices. The key of this process is the negative sign of the effective mass of the wavepacket as it comes closer to the edge of the first Brillouin zone. However, the underlying assumption of the effective mass approach is the slow variation of the wavefunction envelope between consecutive lattice cells. Previous experiments and computations on this type of solitons show that this is not the usual case. In this contribution we will go beyond the slowly varying assumption to demonstrate that the equations governing the dynamics of gap solitons contain a third derivative in the dispersion. As a result, the dynamics of the stabilized wavepackets is found different that the soliton's. In particular, a radiative component is present, and the stability under collisions is only partially achieved.
We investigate nonlinear dynamics induced by the modulation instability of a two-component mixture in an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate. The nonlinear dynamics is examined using numerical simulations of the time-dependent coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations. The unstable modulation grows from initially miscible condensates into various types of vector solitary waves, depending on the combinations of the sign of the coupling constants (intracomponent and intercomponent). We discuss the detailed features of the modulation instability, dynamics of solitary wave formation, and an analogy with the collapsing dynamics in a single-component condensate with attractive interactions.