Modulational Instability and Complex Dynamics of Confined Matter-Wave Solitons

L. Salasnich, A. Parola, and L. Reatto
Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 080405 – Published 22 August 2003

Abstract

We study the formation of bright solitons in a Bose-Einstein condensate of Li7 atoms induced by a sudden change in the sign of the scattering length from positive to negative, as reported in a recent experiment [Nature (London) 417, 150 (2002)]. The numerical simulations are performed by using the Gross-Pitaevskii equation with a dissipative three-body term. We show that a number of bright solitons is produced and this can be interpreted in terms of the modulational instability of the time-dependent macroscopic wave function of the Bose condensate. In particular, we derive a simple formula for the number of solitons that is in good agreement with the numerical results. We find that during the motion of the soliton train in an axial harmonic potential the number of solitonic peaks changes in time and the density of individual peaks shows an intermittent behavior.

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  • Received 28 January 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.91.080405

©2003 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

L. Salasnich1, A. Parola2, and L. Reatto1

  • 1Istituto Nazionale per la Fisica della Materia, Unità di Milano, Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Milano, Via Celoria 16, 20133 Milano, Italy
  • 2Istituto Nazionale per la Fisica della Materia, Unità di Como, Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche, Università dell’Insubria, Via Valeggio 11, 23100 Como, Italy

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Vol. 91, Iss. 8 — 22 August 2003

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