The properties of the localized states of a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a nonlinear periodic potential (nonlinear optical lattice) are investigated. We discuss the existence of different types of solitons and study their stability by means of analytical and numerical approaches. The symmetry properties of the localized states with respect to nonlinear optical lattices are also investigated. We show that nonlinear optical lattices allow the existence of bright soliton modes with equal symmetry in both components and bright localized modes of mixed symmetry type, as well as dark-bright bound states and bright modes on periodic backgrounds. In spite of the quasi-one-dimensional nature of the problem, the fundamental symmetric localized modes undergo a delocalizing transition when the strength of the nonlinear optical lattice is varied. This transition is associated with the existence of an unstable solution, which exhibits a shrinking (decaying) behavior for slightly overcritical (undercritical) variations in the number of atoms.
A Bose-Einstein condensate trapped in a two-dimensional optical lattice exhibits an abrupt transition manifested by the macroscopic wave function changing character from spatially localized to extended. Resulting from a bifurcation, this irreversible transition takes place as the interwell potential barrier is adiabatically decreased below a critical value. This is in sharp contrast to the corresponding one-dimensional case where such a bifurcation is absent and the extent of a localized mode is continuously tunable. We demonstrate how these phenomena can be experimentally explored.
It is shown that inhomogeneous nonlinear interactions in a Bose-Einstein condensate loaded in an optical lattice can result in a delocalizing transition in one dimension, which sharply contrasts to the known behavior of discrete and periodic systems with homogeneous nonlinearity. The transition can be originated either by decreasing the amplitude of the linear periodic potential or by the change of the mean value of the periodic nonlinearity. The dynamics of the delocalizing transition is studied.
Bright solitary-waves may be created in dilute Bose-Einstein condensates of at tractively interacting atoms in one dimensional regimes. In integrable systems, such solitary waves are particle-like objects called solitons. We investigate the consequences of non-integrability on the solitary waves in trapped Bose-Einstein condensates caused by an axial harmonic trap, and non-integrability caused by three dimensional effects. To analyse the soliton-like nature of the solitary-waves in an axial harmonic trap, a particle analogy for the solitary-waves is formulated. Exact Soliton solutions exist in the absence of an external trapping potential, which behave in a particle-like manner, and we find the particle analogy we employ to be a good model also when a harmonic trapping potential is present up to a gradual shift in the trajectories when the harmonic trap period is short compared with the, collision time of the solitons. We find that the collision time of the solions is dependent on the relative phase of the solitons as they collide. In the case of two solitons, the particle model is integrable, and the dynamics are completely regular. In the case of a system of two solitary waves of equal norm, the solitons are shown to retain their phase difference for repeated collisions. The extension to three particles supports both regular and chaotic regimes. The trajectory shift observed for two solitons carrier over to the case of three solitons. This shift aside, the agreement between the particle model and the wave dynamics remains good, even in chaotic regimes. We predict that these chaotic regimes will be an indicator of rapid depletion of the condensate due to quantum transitions of the condensate particles into non-condensate modes. To analyse the residual effects of the three dimensional nature of the solitary waves, we use a nonlinear Schrödinger equation with an additional quintic term. We perform variational calculations, and confirm the collapse of a soliton when the number of particles contained therein is increased past a critical number. We investigate the effects of varying the axial trap frequency and scattering length on the critical number. We propose a method to model particle exchange between solitons by extending the variational treatment to two solitons.
Abstract We study the statics and dynamics of anisotropic, stable, bright and dark-in-bright dipolar quasi-two-dimensional Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) solitons on a one-dimensional (1D) optical-lattice (OL) potential. These solitons mobile in a plane perpendicular to a 1D OL trap can have both repulsive and attractive contact interactions. Dark-in-bright solitons are the excited states of bright solitons. The solitons, when subjected to a small perturbation, exhibit sustained breathing oscillation. Dark-in-bright solitons can be created by phase imprinting a bright soliton. At medium velocities the collision between two solitons is found to be quasi-elastic. Results are demonstrated by a numerical simulation of the three-dimensional mean-field Gross–Pitaevskii equation in three spatial dimensions employing realistic interaction parameters for a dipolar 164 Dy BEC.
Within the framework of a mean-field description, we investigate atomic Bose-Einstein condensates, with attraction between atoms, under the action of a strong transverse confinement and periodic [optical-lattice (OL)] axial potential. Using a combination of the variational approximation, one-dimensional (1D) nonpolynomial Schr\"odinger equation, and direct numerical solutions of the underlying 3D Gross-Pitaevskii equation, we show that the ground state of the condensate is a soliton belonging to the semi-infinite band gap of the periodic potential. The soliton may be confined to a single cell of the lattice or extended to several cells, depending on the effective self-attraction strength
g (which is proportional to the number of atoms bound in the soliton) and depth of the potential,
V0, the increase of
V0 leading to strong compression of the soliton. We demonstrate that the OL is an effective tool to control the soliton's shape. It is found that, due to the 3D character of the underlying setting, the ground-state soliton collapses at a critical value of the strength,
g=gc, which gradually decreases with the increase of
V0; under typical experimental conditions, the corresponding maximum number of
7Li atoms in the soliton,
Nmax, ranges between 8000 and 4000. Examples of stable multipeaked solitons are also found in the first finite band gap of the lattice spectrum. The respective critical value
gc again slowly decreases with the increase of
V0, corresponding to ${N}_{\mathrm{max}}\ensuremath{\simeq}5000$.