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Symmetry

Symmetry-Driven Multi-Soliton Dynamics in Bose–Einstein Condensates in Reduced Dimensions

Laurent Delisle, Amine Jaouadi

Published Apr 11, 2025• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present a theoretical and numerical study of soliton formation and dynamics in a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) confined within a symmetric harmonic trap, subjected to an external barrier potential. Our investigation focuses on the role of symmetry in the system, particularly highlighting how the interplay between the harmonic confinement and the barrier shape governs the generation and evolution of multi-soliton states. Employing a reduction of the 3D Gross–Pitaevskii equation to lower-dimensional regimes, we analyze the behavior of dark solitons in 2D and 1D configurations using, for the former, exact solutions constructed from the Hirota’s bilinear formalism. We observe that the number of generated solitons exhibits a plateau-like dependence on the height of the potential barrier, reflecting the system’s symmetry and nonlinearity. Furthermore, we break the central symmetry by translating the barrier, leading to asymmetrical soliton patterns and novel dynamical behaviors. These findings underline the fundamental role of symmetry in the formation and stability of solitons in confined quantum gases, offering new perspectives on soliton engineering in trapped BECs.

DOI
10.3390/sym17040582

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We present a theoretical and numerical study of soliton formation and dynamics in a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) confined within a symmetric harmonic trap, subjected to an external barrier potential. Our investigation focuses on the role of symmetry in the system, particularly highlighting how the interplay between the harmonic confinement and the barrier shape governs the generation and evolution of multi-soliton states. Employing a reduction of the 3D Gross–Pitaevskii equation to lower-dimensional regimes, we analyze the behavior of dark solitons in 2D and 1D configurations using, for the former, exact solutions constructed from the Hirota’s bilinear formalism. We observe that the number of generated solitons exhibits a plateau-like dependence on the height of the potential barrier, reflecting the system’s symmetry and nonlinearity. Furthermore, we break the central symmetry by translating the barrier, leading to asymmetrical soliton patterns and novel dynamical behaviors. These findings underline the fundamental role of symmetry in the formation and stability of solitons in confined quantum gases, offering new perspectives on soliton engineering in trapped BECs.
Abstract This study investigates the formation and dynamics of solitons in Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) within dark traps generated by two crossed Laguerre–Gaussian (LG) beams with varying azimuthal indices ℓ . As the index ℓ increases, the potential transitions from a harmonic trap when ℓ = 1 to a square-well potential for larger values of ℓ . This transition allows us to study a range of soliton dynamics under different confinement conditions while maintaining the same BEC volume. Through the derivation of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE) and under these specific conditions in both one-dimensional and two-dimensional configurations, we explore the dynamics of solitons across multiple scenarios. The study examines two primary methods for solitons generation: the temporal modulation of the scattering length and the implementation of an initial potential barrier that is subsequently removed. The results indicate that the trap shape plays a critical role in the generation and interaction dynamics of solitons. In harmonic traps, solitons exhibit a behavior different from those observed in anharmonic traps, where the dynamics is significantly influenced by the azimuthal index of the trap. The ability to control soliton dynamics in BECs holds significant promise for applications in quantum technologies, precision sensing, and the exploration of fundamental quantum phenomena.
Solitons are striking manifestations of nonlinearity, encountered in diverse physical systems such as water waves, nonlinear optics, and Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs). In BECs, dark solitons emerge as exact stationary solutions of the one-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equation. While they can be long-lived in elongated traps, their stability is compromised in higher dimensions due to the snake instability, which leads to the decay of the soliton into vortex structures among other excitations. We investigate the dynamics of a dark soliton in a Bose-Einstein condensate confined in an anisotropic harmonic trap. Using a variational ansatz that incorporates both the transverse bending of the soliton plane and the emergence of vortices along the nodal line, we derive equations of motion governing the soliton's evolution. This approach allows us to identify stable oscillation modes as well as the growth rates of the unstable perturbations. In particular, we determine the critical trap anisotropy required to suppress the snake instability. Our analytical predictions are in good agreement with full numerical simulations of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.
We study the statics and dynamics of dark solitons in a cigar-shaped Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a double-well potential. Using a mean-field model with a noncubic nonlinearity, appropriate to describe the dimensionality crossover regime from one- to three-dimensional, we obtain branches of solutions in the form of single and multiple dark soliton states, and study their bifurcations and stability. It is demonstrated that there exist dark soliton states which do not have a linear counterpart and we highlight the role of anomalous modes in the excitation spectra. Particularly, we show that anomalous mode eigenfrequencies are closely connected to the characteristic soliton frequencies as found from the solitons' equations of motion, and how anomalous modes are related to the emergence of instabilities. We also analyze in detail the role of the height of the barrier in the double-well setting, which may lead to instabilities or decouple multiple dark soliton states.
We study fundamental and vortical solitons in disk-morphed Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) subject to strong confinement along the axial direction. Starting from the three-dimensional (3D) Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE), we proceed to an effective two-dimensional (2D) nonpolynomial Schr\"odinger equation (NPSE) derived by means of the integration over the axial coordinate. Results produced by the latter equation are in very good agreement with those obtained from the full 3D GPE, including cases when the formal 2D equation with the cubic nonlinearity is unreliable. The 2D NPSE is used to predict the density profiles and dynamical stability of repulsive and attractive BECs with zero and finite topological charges in various planar trapping configurations, including the axisymmetric harmonic confinement and one-dimensional periodic potential. In particular, we find a stable dynamical regime that was not reported before, viz., periodic splitting and recombination of trapped vortices with topological charges 2 or 3 in the self-attractive BEC.
Abstract: In this thesis we experimentally observe the dynamics of dark solitons in elongated Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) in the crossover regime between 1D and 3D. Dark solitons are dynamically stable in this regime. This allows the observation of the collisional and oscillational dynamics of two dark solitons in a harmonically confined BEC over several oscillation periods. We can detect the repulsive intersolitonic interaction as an increase of the oscillation frequency of the two solitons strongly depending on their mean distance. Thereby we give the first experimental evidence of the theoretically predicted repulsive interaction between the solitons. We compare our experimental findings to numerical simulations of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation and effective 1D equations. Additionally we develop a model in which the solitons are approximated by repulsively interacting classical particles. This model is based on a soliton interaction potential suggested by [Kiv1995] and can describe the essentials of the soliton dynamics. We observe well agreement between the soliton oscillation frequencies measured in the experiment, the numerical simulations and the results of the particle model. Besides we verify the theoretical prediction that the oscillation frequency of dark solitons in a harmonically confined BEC should be slower than the trap frequency.
We investigate the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensate bright solitons made of alkali-metal atoms with negative scattering length and under harmonic confinement in the transverse direction. Contrary to the one-dimensional (1D) case, the 3D bright soliton exists only below a critical attractive interaction that depends on the extent of confinement. Such a behavior is also found in multisoliton condensates with box boundary conditions. We obtain numerical and analytical estimates of the critical strength beyond which the solitons do not exist. By using an effective 1D nonpolynomial nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation, which accurately takes into account the transverse dynamics of cigarlike condensates, we numerically simulate the dynamics of the ``soliton train'' reported in a recent experiment [Nature (London) 417, 150 (2002)]. Then, analyzing the macroscopic quantum tunneling of the bright soliton on a Gaussian barrier, we find that its interference in the tunneling region is strongly suppressed with respect to nonsolitonic case; moreover, the tunneling through a barrier breaks the shape invariance of the matter wave. Finally, we show that the collapse of the soliton is induced by the scattering on the barrier or by the collision with another matter wave when the density reaches a critical value, for which we derive an accurate analytical formula.