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arXiv:cond-mat/0506060 · Physical Review Letters

Friction and Diffusion of Matter-Wave Bright Solitons

Subhasis Sinha, Alexander Yu. Cherny, Dmitry L. Kovrizhin, Joachim Brand

Published Jan 26, 2006• 81 citations
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Abstract

We consider the motion of a matter-wave bright soliton under the influence of a cloud of thermal particles. In the ideal one-dimensional system, the scattering process of the quasiparticles with the soliton is reflectionless; however, the quasiparticles acquire a phase shift. In the realistic system of a Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a tight waveguide trap, the transverse degrees of freedom generate an extra nonlinearity in the system which gives rise to finite reflection and leads to dissipative motion of the soliton. We calculate the velocity and temperature-dependent frictional force and diffusion coefficient of a matter-wave bright soliton immersed in a thermal cloud.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.96.030406

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We consider the motion of a matter-wave bright soliton under the influence of a cloud of thermal particles. In the ideal one-dimensional system, the scattering process of the quasiparticles with the soliton is reflectionless; however, the quasiparticles acquire a phase shift. In the realistic system of a Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a tight waveguide trap, the transverse degrees of freedom generate an extra nonlinearity in the system which gives rise to finite reflection and leads to dissipative motion of the soliton. We calculate the velocity and temperature-dependent frictional force and diffusion coefficient of a matter-wave bright soliton immersed in a thermal cloud.
We investigate dynamical effects of a bright soliton in Bose–Einstein condensed (BEC) systems with local and smooth space variations of the two-body atomic scattering length. It includes a discussion about the possible observation of a new type of standing nonlinear atomic matter wave in cigar-type traps. A rich dynamics is observed in the interaction between the soliton and an inhomogeneity. By considering an analytical time-dependent variational approach and also full numerical simulation of one-dimensional and three-dimensional Gross–Pitaevskii equations, we study processes such as trapping, reflection and transmission of the bright matter soliton due to the impurity. We also derive conditions for the collapse of the bright solitary wave, considering a quasi-one-dimensional BEC with attractive local inhomogeneity.
We explore the quantum dynamics of a bright matter-wave soliton in a quasi-one-dimensional bosonic superfluid with attractive interactions. Specifically, we focus on the dissipative forces experienced by the soliton due to its interaction with Bogoliubov excitations. Using the collective coordinate approach and the Keldysh formalism, a Langevin equation of motion for the soliton is derived from first principles. The equation contains a stochastic Langevin force (associated with quantum noise) and a nonlocal in time dissipative force, which appears due to inelastic scattering of Bogoliubov quasiparticles off of the moving soliton. It is shown that Ohmic friction (i.e., a term proportional to the soliton's velocity) is absent in the integrable setup. However, the Markovian approximation gives rise to the Abraham-Lorentz force (i.e., a term proportional to the derivative of the soliton's acceleration), which is known from classical electrodynamics of a charged particle interacting with its own radiation. These Abraham-Lorentz equations famously contain a fundamental causality paradox, where the soliton (particle) interacts with excitations (radiation) originating from future events. We show, however, that the causality paradox is an artifact of the Markovian approximation, and our exact non-Markovian dissipative equations give rise to physical trajectories. We argue that the quantum friction discussed here should be observable in current quantum gas experiments.
Taking an open quantum system approach, we derive a collective equation of motion for the dynamics of a matter-wave bright soliton moving through a thermal cloud of a distinct atomic species. The reservoir interaction involves energy transfer without particle transfer between the soliton and thermal cloud, thus damping the soliton motion without altering its stability against collapse. We derive a Langevin equation for the soliton center-of-mass velocity in the form of an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process with analytical drift and diffusion coefficients. This collective motion is confirmed by simulations of the full stochastic projected Gross-Pitaevskii equation for the matter-wave field. The system offers a pathway for experimentally observing the elusive energy-damping reservoir interaction and a clear realization of collective Brownian motion for a mesoscopic superfluid droplet.
Solitonic characteristics are revealed in the diffusion process of a hump or a notch wave packet in a one-dimensional Bose–Einstein condensate. By numerically solving the time-dependent Gross–Pitaevskii equation, we find completely different spreading behavior for attractive or repulsive condensates. For the attractive condensate, a series of bright solitons are continuously generated one after another at the wave front and they nearly stay at the positions where they are generated in the whole diffusion process. In contrast, for the repulsive condensate, the initial wave packet splits at the beginning into a series of grey solitons that travel at different velocities. The moving velocity of the grey soliton depends on nonlinear interaction strength, as well as the shape of a particular grey soliton.
We consider the dynamics of a dark soliton in an elongated harmonically trapped Bose-Einstein condensate. A central question concerns the behavior at finite temperatures, where dissipation arises due to the presence of a thermal cloud. We study this problem using coupled Gross-Pitaevskii and N-body simulations, which include the mean field coupling between the condensate and thermal cloud. We find that the soliton decays relatively quickly even at very low temperatures, with the decay rate increasing with rising temperature. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007.
We consider the dynamics of a dark soliton in an elongated harmonically trapped Bose-Einstein condensate. A central question concerns the behavior at finite temperatures, where dissipation arises due to the presence of a thermal cloud. We study this problem using coupled Gross-Pitaevskii and N-body simulations, which include the mean field coupling between the condensate and thermal cloud. We find that the soliton decays relatively quickly even at very low temperatures, with the decay rate increasing with rising temperature. PACS numbers: 03.75.Lm, 05.45.Yv, 67.80.Gb 1.