Dynamics of matter solitons in weakly modulated optical lattices

It is shown that matter solitons can be effectively managed by means of smooth variations of parameters of optical lattices in which the condensate is loaded. The phenomenon is based on the effect of lattice modulations on the carrier wave transporting the soliton and that is why is well understood in terms of the effective mass approach, where a particular spatial configuration of the band structure is of primary importance. Linear, parabolic, and spatially localized modulations are considered as the case examples. It is shown that these defects can originate accelerating and oscillating motion of matter solitons as well as simulate soliton interaction with attractive and repulsive defects.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures (text with major revision

Dynamical generation of interwoven soliton trains by nonlinear emission in binary Bose-Einstein condensates

We propose a method for the generation of trains of alternating bright solitons in two-component Bose-Einstein condensates, using controlled emission of nonlinear matter-waves in the uncoupled regime with spatially-varying intra-species interaction and out-of-phase oscillations of the ground states in the trap. Under this scheme, solitons are sequentially launched from the different components, and interact with each other through phase-independent cross-coupling. We obtain an analytical estimation of the critical condition for soliton emission using a geometric guiding model, in analogy with integrated optical systems. In addition, we show how strong initial perturbations in the system can trigger the spontaneous generation of supersolitons, i.e. localized phonon-like excitations of the soliton trains. Finally, we demonstrate the controllable generation of slow and fast supersolitons by adding external localized potentials in the nonlinear region

Defect modes of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice with a localized impurity

We study defect modes of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice with a localized defect within the framework of the one-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equation. It is shown that for a significant range of parameters the defect modes can be accurately described by an expansion over Wannier functions, whose envelope is governed by the coupled nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger equation with a delta-impurity. The stability of the defect modes is verified by direct numerical simulations of the underlying Gross-Pitaevskii equation with a periodic plus defect potentials. We also discuss possibilities of driving defect modes through the lattice and suggest ideas for their experimental generation.Comment: 14 pages, 9 Figures, 1 Tabl

Driving defect modes of Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices

We present an approximate analytical theory and direct numerical computation of defect modes of a Bose-Einstein condensate loaded in an optical lattice and subject to an additional localized (defect) potential. Some of the modes are found to be remarkably stable and can be driven along the lattice by means of a defect moving following a step-like function defined by the period of Josephson oscillations and the macroscopic stability of the atoms.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Adiabatic dynamics of periodic waves in Bose-Einstein condensate with time dependent atomic scattering length

Evolution of periodic matter waves in one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates with time dependent scattering length is described. It is shown that variation of the effective nonlinearity is a powerful tool for controlled generation of bright and dark solitons starting with periodic waves.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Nonlinear tunneling in two-dimensional lattices

We present thorough analysis of the nonlinear tunneling of Bose-Einstein condensates in static and accelerating two-dimensional lattices within the framework of the mean-field approximation. We deal with nonseparable lattices considering different initial atomic distributions in the highly symmetric states. For analytical description of the condensate before instabilities are developed, we derive several few-mode models, analyzing both essentially nonlinear and quasi-linear regimes of tunneling. By direct numerical simulations, we show that two-mode models provide accurate description of the tunneling when either initially two states are populated or tunneling occurs between two stable states. Otherwise a two-mode model may give only useful qualitative hints for understanding tunneling but does not reproduce many features of the phenomenon. This reflects crucial role of the instabilities developed due to two-body interactions resulting in non-negligible population of the higher bands. This effect becomes even more pronounced in the case of accelerating lattices. In the latter case we show that the direction of the acceleration is a relevant physical parameter which affects the tunneling by changing the atomic rates at different symmetric states and by changing the numbers of bands involved in the atomic transfer