Matter-wave solitons with a periodic, piecewise-constant scattering length

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2008

Authors

Rodrigues, AS (Author) FCUP; Kevrekidis, PG (Author) Other; Mason A Porter (Author) Other; Frantzeskakis, DJ (Author) Other; Schmelcher, P (Author) Other; Bishop, AR (Author) Other

Journal

Title: Physical Review A - Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics

Vol. 78

ISSN: 1050-2947

Publisher: American Physical Society

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 44 Citations

Scopus - 43 Citations

Scientific classification

FOS: Natural sciences > Physical sciences

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-003-YA3

DOI: 10.1103/physreva.78.013611

Abstract (EN): Motivated by recent proposals of "collisionally inhomogeneous" Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs), which have a spatially modulated scattering length, we study the existence and stability properties of bright and dark matter-wave solitons of a BEC characterized by a periodic, piecewise-constant scattering length. We use a "stitching" approach to analytically approximate the pertinent solutions of the underlying nonlinear Schrodinger equation by matching the wave function and its derivatives at the interfaces of the nonlinearity coefficient. To accurately quantify the stability of bright and dark solitons, we adapt general tools from the theory of perturbed Hamiltonian systems. We show that stationary solitons must be centered in one of the constant regions of the piecewise-constant nonlinearity. We find both stable and unstable configurations for bright solitons and show that all dark solitons are unstable, with different instability mechanisms that depend on the soliton location. We corroborate our analytical results with numerical computations.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 10