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Realizing bright-matter-wave-soliton collisions with controlled relative phase

T. P. Billam, S. L. Cornish, and S. A. Gardiner
Phys. Rev. A 83, 041602(R) – Published 18 April 2011

Abstract

We propose a method to split the ground state of an attractively interacting atomic Bose-Einstein condensate into two bright solitary waves with controlled relative phase and velocity. We analyze the stability of these waves against their subsequent recollisions at the center of a cylindrically symmetric, prolate harmonic trap as a function of relative phase, velocity, and trap anisotropy. We show that the collisional stability is strongly dependent on relative phase at low velocity, and we identify previously unobserved oscillations in the collisional stability as a function of the trap anisotropy. An experimental implementation of our method would determine the validity of the mean-field description of bright solitary waves and could prove to be an important step toward atom interferometry experiments involving bright solitary waves.

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  • Received 19 October 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.83.041602

©2011 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

T. P. Billam*, S. L. Cornish, and S. A. Gardiner

  • Department of Physics, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, United Kingdom

  • *t.p.billam@durham.ac.uk

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Issue

Vol. 83, Iss. 4 — April 2011

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