Solitons in tunnel-coupled repulsive and attractive condensates

We study solitons in the condensate trapped in a double-well potential with far-separated wells, when the s-wave scattering length has different signs in the two parts of the condensate. By employing the coupled-mode approximation it is shown that there are unusual stable bright solitons in the condensate, with the larger share of atoms being gathered in the repulsive part. Such unusual solitons derive their stability from the quantum tunneling and correspond to the strong coupling between the parts of the condensate. The ground state of the system, however, corresponds to weak coupling between the condensate parts, with the larger share of atoms being gathered in the attractive part of the condensate.Comment: LaTex, 23 pages, 6 figures; revised version; to appear in Physical Review

Interband resonant transitions in two-dimensional hexagonal lattices: Rabi oscillations, Zener tunnelling, and tunnelling of phase dislocations

We study, analytically and numerically, the dynamics of interband transitions in two-dimensional hexagonal periodic photonic lattices. We develop an analytical approach employing the Bragg resonances of different types and derive the effective multi-level models of the Landau-Zener-Majorana type. For two-dimensional periodic potentials without a tilt, we demonstrate the possibility of the Rabi oscillations between the resonant Fourier amplitudes. In a biased lattice, i.e., for a two-dimensional periodic potential with an additional linear tilt, we identify three basic types of the interband transitions or Zener tunnelling. First, this is a quasi-one-dimensional tunnelling that involves only two Bloch bands and occurs when the Bloch index crosses the Bragg planes away from one of the high-symmetry points. In contrast, at the high-symmetry points (i.e., at the M and Γ points), the Zener tunnelling is essentially two-dimensional, and it involves either three or six Bloch bands being described by the corresponding multi-level Landau-Zener-Majorana systems. We verify our analytical results by numerical simulations and observe an excellent agreement. Finally, we show that phase dislocations, or optical vortices, can tunnel between the spectral bands preserving their topological charge. Our theory describes the propagation of light beams in fabricated or opticallyinduced two-dimensional photonic lattices, but it can also be applied to the physics of cold atoms and Bose-Einstein condensates tunnelling in tilted two-dimensional optical potentials and other types of resonant wave propagation in periodic media

Mixed-isotope Bose-Einstein condensates in Rubidium

We consider the ground state properties of mixed Bose-Einstein condensates of 87Rb and 85Rb atoms in the isotropic pancake trap, for both signs of the interspecies scattering length. In the case of repulsive interspecies interaction, there are the axially-symmetric and symmetry-breaking ground states. The threshold for the symmetry breaking transition, which is related to appearance of a zero dipole-mode, is found numerically. For attractive interspecies interactions, the two condensates assume symmetric ground states for the numbers of atoms up to the collapse instability of the mixture.Comment: Revised; 21 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Physical Review

General soliton matrices in the Riemann-Hilbert problem for integrable nonlinear equations

We derive the soliton matrices corresponding to an arbitrary number of higher-order normal zeros for the matrix Riemann-Hilbert problem of arbitrary matrix dimension, thus giving the complete solution to the problem of higher-order solitons. Our soliton matrices explicitly give all higher-order multi-soliton solutions to the nonlinear partial differential equations integrable through the matrix Riemann-Hilbert problem. We have applied these general results to the three-wave interaction system, and derived new classes of higher-order soliton and two-soliton solutions, in complement to those from our previous publication [Stud. Appl. Math. \textbf{110}, 297 (2003)], where only the elementary higher-order zeros were considered. The higher-order solitons corresponding to non-elementary zeros generically describe the simultaneous breakup of a pumping wave $(u_3)$ into the other two components ($u_1$ and $u_2$) and merger of $u_1$ and $u_2$ waves into the pumping $u_3$ wave. The two-soliton solutions corresponding to two simple zeros generically describe the breakup of the pumping $u_3$ wave into the $u_1$ and $u_2$ components, and the reverse process. In the non-generic cases, these two-soliton solutions could describe the elastic interaction of the $u_1$ and $u_2$ waves, thus reproducing previous results obtained by Zakharov and Manakov [Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. \textbf{69}, 1654 (1975)] and Kaup [Stud. Appl. Math. \textbf{55}, 9 (1976)].Comment: To appear in J. Math. Phy