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Optics and Photonics News

Incoherent Solitons

Mordechai Segev, Demetrios N. Christodoulides

Published Feb 1, 2002• 17 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Solitons are fascinating entities that are known to exist in many different branches of physics. They represent self-localized wave packets that do not expand while propagating in a dispersive environment. The localization (self-trapping) relies on a nonlinear effect, and it can result from a variety of nonlinear mechanisms. In general, solitons exhibit a rich, particlelike behavior that is clearly manifested during their interactions (collisions). Despite their diversity, solitons are a universal phenomenon and thus share many common features. In their most frequent realization, these particlelike wave packets are fully coherent entities. In this case, given the soliton phase at a particular location as well as the frequency of the carrier wave, one can deterministically predict the phase everywhere (at any given point in space and time) upon the soliton.

DOI
10.1364/opn.13.2.000070

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Solitons are fascinating entities that are known to exist in many different branches of physics. They represent self-localized wave packets that do not expand while propagating in a dispersive environment. The localization (self-trapping) relies on a nonlinear effect, and it can result from a variety of nonlinear mechanisms. In general, solitons exhibit a rich, particlelike behavior that is clearly manifested during their interactions (collisions). Despite their diversity, solitons are a universal phenomenon and thus share many common features. In their most frequent realization, these particlelike wave packets are fully coherent entities. In this case, given the soliton phase at a particular location as well as the frequency of the carrier wave, one can deterministically predict the phase everywhere (at any given point in space and time) upon the soliton.
Solitons are non-dispersive wave packets that balance the wave dispersion with a focusing nonlinearity. They maintain their shape and velocity after collisions with other solitons, owing to the integrability of the underlying nonlinear partial differential equations. They appear in various physical systems, such as water waves, light waves in optical fiber, and matter waves. In our laboratory, we study solitons and their interactions in a Bose-Einstein condensate with an attractive nonlinearity, trapped in a quasi-one-dimensional waveguide. We investigate the collisions of a pair of solitons and explore the relative phase implications on the boundary of integrability. We study soliton train formation with the quench of the nonlinearity strength, and interactions between neighboring solitons in the train. We form a composite soliton, known as a breather, where multiple solitons overlap and the wavefunction ``breathes'' in time. We also explore the response of an elongated condensate to an external modulation of the nonlinearity. These experiments characterize the mean-field descriptions of solitons and Bose-Einstein condensates and explore the boundaries between the mean-field theory and quantum many-body theory.
Many particle systems follow a complex time evolution. If system interactions are governed by nonlinear behavior, the theoretical description is often difficult to address. The nonlinear dynamics of some systems feature solitary waves or solitons, which are dynamically stable excitations. They come about whenever the ubiquitous dispersion of a wave is compensated for by some nonlinear, i.e., amplitude-dependent response. First observed in water, today solitons are known to appear in many systems in different fields of physics.
The dynamics of a three-state quantum walk with amplitude-dependent phase shifts is investigated. We consider two representative inputs whose linear evolution is known to display either full dispersion of the wave packet or intrinsic localization on the initial position. The nonlinear counterpart presents much more involved dynamics featuring self-trapping, solitonic pulses, radiation, and chaoticlike behavior. We show that nonlinearity leads to a metastable self-trapped wave-packet component that radiates in the long-time regime with a survival probability $\ensuremath{\propto}{t}^{\ensuremath{-}1/2}$. A sudden dynamical transition from such a metastable state to the point when the radiation process is triggered is found for a set of parameters.
The objective of this PhD thesis was the examination of the dynamical behaviour of coherent wave packets realised by Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) out of 87Rubidium atoms. Their dynamics is mainly affected by linear dispersion due to momentum uncertainty and by nonlinear atomic interaction due to s-wave scattering. The primary objective was the realisation of bright atomic solitons, which represent density distributions with time-independent shape. They only exist if the effects of dispersion and nonlinearity cancel out each other. For 87Rb atoms with repulsive interaction this requires the dispersion of the ensemble to be anomalous. The dispersion of the wave packet can be influenced in sign and in magnitude by superimposing a periodic potential and by changing the quasi-momentum of the atoms. For that purpose an apparatus to produce Bose-Einstein condesates as source of coherent matter waves was build up and characterised. The phase transition was observed as well in magnetic as in optical dipole traps. Experiments related to the dynamic of wave packets were conducted in a twodimensional optical trap retaining the atoms against gravity and allowing them to propagate along the axis of the trap. The periodic potential to influence the dispersion results from two counterpropagating interfering laser beams superimposed to the dipole trap. A first set of experiments demonstrated the possibility to influence the linear dispersion of matter waves by changing the quasi-momentum of the atoms in a periodic potential. In particular wave packets with anomalous dispersion were prepared at the brillouin zone edge in quasi-momentum space. Their behaviour is equivalent to particles with a negative effective mass, which was be confirmed by reversing the time evolution of an expanding wave packet. This demonstration of a negative effective mass of wave packets was an essential prerequisite for the creation of atomic solitons. Their formation was observed having prepared Bose-Einstein condensates of only 1000 atoms. A further set of systematic experiments was performed confirming the solitonic behaviour of the wave packets. This was the first realisation of atomic solitons with repulsive interaction also called Gap-Solitons.
We return to the notion of optical solitons as these were first introduced—namely as exact soliton and multi-soliton solutions of the semi-classical self-induced transparency (SIT) equations. The SIT equations, even in their most general inhomogeneously broadened forms, are infinite dimensional, completely integrable Hamiltonian systems, and thus display much mathematical structure, yet their exact soliton solutions display well the nonlinear (self-induced) transparency features of the physical phenomenon. The mathematical feature of complete integrability is handed down from the SIT equations to the nonlinear Schrödinger equations and from this point of view the nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equations equations are studied first of all at classical level and then at quantum level. The ‘quantum soliton’ of the quantum attractive NLS model is defined and its properties investigated in detail, particularly in a comparison with the particular properties ascribed to the ‘quantum soliton’ as described in a recently published article (Abraham 1999 Phys. World (February) 21) with this title; as suggested in that article, the quantum NLS soliton is seen as a qubit for quantum information purposes. The covariant form of the quantum attractive NLS model is the quantum sine-Gordon model and this is briefly studied in the context of quantum information also; new results for large area Josephson junctions are reported in this context. The quantum soliton of the one dimensional attractive NLS model has apparently been observed in 2002 in a Bose condensed metal vapour ( 7 Li, (Khaykovich et al 2002 Science 296 1290)) and a detailed calculation suggests that the condensate undergoes a ‘collapse’ from three to one space dimensions thus forming an exact soliton solution of the one dimensional quantum attractive NLS model.