We report on the focalization of Bogoliubov–de Gennes excitations of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation in the defocusing regime (Gross-Pitaevskii equation for repulsive Bose-Einstein condensates) with a spatially modulated periodic potential. Exploiting the modification of the dispersion relation induced by the modulation, we demonstrate the existence of localized structures of the Bogoliubov–de Gennes excitations, in both the linear and nonlinear regimes (linear and nonlinear “bullets”). These traveling Bogoliubov–de Gennes bullets, localized both spatially and temporally in the comoving reference frame, are robust and propagate remaining stable, without spreading or filamentation. The phenomena reported in this Letter could be observed in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates in the presence of a spatially periodic potential induced by an optical lattice.

• Received 19 July 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.044103