Soliton splitting by external delta potentials

We show that a soliton scattered by an external delta potential splits into two solitons and a radiation term. Theoretical analysis gives the amplitudes and phases of the reflected and transmitted solitons with errors going to zero as the velocity of the incoming soliton tends to infinity. Numerical analysis shows that this asymptotic relation is valid for all but very slow solitons. We also show that the total transmitted mass, that is the square of the $L^2$ norm of the solution restricted on the transmitted side of the delta potential is in good agreement with the quantum transmission rate of the delta potential. This paper is a numerical companion to our analytical paper on the same topic, "Fast soliton scattering by delta impurities," math.AP/0602187

The inverse problem for the Gross - Pitaevskii equation

Two different methods are proposed for the generation of wide classes of exact solutions to the stationary Gross - Pitaevskii equation (GPE). The first method, suggested by the work by Kondrat'ev and Miller (1966), applies to one-dimensional (1D) GPE. It is based on the similarity between the GPE and the integrable Gardner equation, all solutions of the latter equation (both stationary and nonstationary ones) generating exact solutions to the GPE, with the potential function proportional to the corresponding solutions. The second method is based on the "inverse problem" for the GPE, i.e. construction of a potential function which provides a desirable solution to the equation. Systematic results are presented for 1D and 2D cases. Both methods are illustrated by a variety of localized solutions, including solitary vortices, for both attractive and repulsive nonlinearity in the GPE. The stability of the 1D solutions is tested by direct simulations of the time-dependent GPE

Enhanced Quantum Reflection of Matter-Wave Solitons

Matter-wave bright solitons are predicted to reflect from a purely attractive potential well although they are macroscopic objects with classical particle-like properties. The non-classical reflection occurs at small velocities and a pronounced switching to almost perfect transmission above a critical velocity is found, caused by nonlinear mean-field interactions. Full numerical results from the nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger equation are complimented by a two-mode variational calculation to explain the predicted effect, which can be used for velocity filtering of solitons. The experimental realization with laser-induced potentials or two-component Bose-Einstein condensates is suggested.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Europhys. Let

Low-density, one-dimensional quantum gases in a split trap

We investigate degenerate quantum gases in one dimension trapped in a harmonic potential that is split in the centre by a pointlike potential. Since the single particle eigenfunctions of such a system are known for all strengths of the central potential, the dynamics for non-interacting fermionic gases and low-density, strongly interacting bosonic gases can be investigated exactly using the Fermi-Bose mapping theorem. We calculate the exact many-particle ground-state wave-functions for both particle species, investigate soliton-like solutions, and compare the bosonic system to the well-known physics of Bose gases described by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. We also address the experimentally important questions of creation and detection of such states.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure