Matter wave soliton collisions in the quasi one-dimensional potential

We consider soliton solutions of a two-dimensional nonlinear system with the self-focusing nonlinearity and a quasi 1D confining potential, taking harmonic potential as an example. We investigate a single soliton in detail and find criterion for possible collapse. This information is then used to investigate the dynamics of the two soliton collision. In this dynamics we identify three regimes according to the relation between nonlinear interaction and the excitation energy: elastic collision, excitation and collapse regime. We show that surprisingly accurate predictions can be obtained from variational analysis.     

Angular pseudomomentum theory for the generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation in discrete rotational symmetry media

We develop a complete mathematical theory for the symmetrical solutions of the generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation based on the concept of angular pseudomomentum. We consider the symmetric solitons of a generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation with a nonlinearity depending on the modulus of the field. We provide a rigorous proof of a set of mathematical results justifying that these solitons can be classified according to the irreducible representations of a discrete group. Then we extend this theory to non-stationary solutions and study the relationship between angular momentum and pseudomomentum. We illustrate these theoretical results with numerical examples.     

Photo-induced dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates in optical superlattice

The photo-induced dynamics of cold atoms in a one-dimensional optical superlattice is observed. Steady state distribution of the probability amplitudes and the site population in a one-dimensional optical superlattice is found. It is shown that this solution of the equations, which describes the temporal behavior of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a superlattice, is unstable at the sufficiently high level of boson density. The expression for the increment of modulational instability is obtained on the basis of the linear stability analysis. The numerical examples of non-stationary solutions for boson density in a superlattice for the general model are discussed as applied to both the attraction and repulsion potentials of boson interaction.     

Gap solitons in a model of a superfluid fermion gas in optical lattices

We consider a dynamical model for a Fermi gas in the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superfluid state, trapped in a combination of a 1D or 2D optical lattice (OL) and a tight parabolic potential, acting in the transverse direction(s). The model is based on an equation for the order parameter (wave function), which is derived from the energy density for the weakly coupled BCS superfluid. The equation includes a nonlinear self-repulsive term of power 7/3, which accounts for the Fermi pressure. Reducing the equation to the 1D or 2D form, we construct families of stable 1D and 2D gap solitons (GSs) by means of numerical simulations, which are guided by the variational approximation (VA). The GSs are, chiefly, compact objects trapped in a single cell of the OL potential. In the linear limit, the VA predicts almost exact positions of narrow Bloch bands that separate the semi-infinite and first finite gaps, as well as the first and second finite ones. Families of stable even and odd bound states of 1D GSs are constructed, too. We also demonstrate that the GS can be dragged without much distortion by an OL moving at a moderate velocity (, in physical units). The predicted GSs contain ∼10³-10⁴ and ∼10³ atoms per 1D and 2D settings, respectively.     

Mathematical and physical aspects of controlling the exact solutions of the 3D Gross-Pitaevskii equation

The possibility of the decomposition of the three-dimensional (3D) Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE) into a pair of coupled Schrödinger-type equations, is investigated. It is shown that, under suitable mathematical conditions, it is possible to construct the exact controlled solutions of the 3D GPE from the solutions of a linear 2D Schrödinger equation coupled with a 1D nonlinear Schrödinger equation (the transverse and longitudinal components of the GPE, respectively). The coupling between these two equations is the functional of the transverse and the longitudinal profiles. The applied method of nonlinear decomposition, called the controlling potential method (CPM), yields the full 3D solution in the form of the product of the solutions of the transverse and longitudinal components of the GPE. It is shown that the CPM constitutes a variational principle and sets up a condition on the controlling potential well. Its physical interpretation is given in terms of the minimization of the (energy) effects introduced by the control. The method is applied to the case of a parabolic external potential to construct analytically an exact BEC state in the form of a bright soliton, for which the quantitative comparison between the external and controlling potentials is presented.     

Collisions between a single gold atom and 13 atom gold clusters: an ab initio approach

Collision processes between a single gold atom and a gold cluster are investigated by means of ab initio techniques. The targets we consider are minimum energy 13 gold atom clusters. The kinetic energy of the projectile and its impact parameter are chosen within a range such that the three regimes we are mainly interested in studying (fusion, scattering and fragmentation) are realized. The results of the collision processes are treated using density functional theory molecular dynamics (DFT-MD), analyzed in detail, and compared with previous work, which was carried out using phenomenological potentials and classical molecular dynamics. The differences between classical MD and DFT-MD are quite significant.     

Modulating the amplitude of dark soliton by scattering-length management in Bose-Einstein condensates

We present a family of soliton solutions of the quasi-one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates with time-dependent scattering length, by developing multiple-scale method combined with truncated Painlevé expansion. Then, by numerical calculating the solutions, it is shown that there exhibit two types of dark solitons—black soliton (the zero minimum amplitude at its center) and gray soliton (the minimum density does not drop to zero) in a repulsive condensate. Furthermore, we propose experimental protocols to realize the exchange between black and gray solitons by varying the scattering length via the Feshbach resonance in currently experimental conditions.     

Ground State Properties for Bose-Condensed Gas in Anisotropic Traps

Based on the energy functional and variational method, we present a new method to investigate the ground state properties for a weakly interacting Bose-condensed gas in an anisotropic harmonic trap at zero temperature. With this method we are able to find the analytic expression of the ground-state wavefunction and to explore the relevant quantities, such as energy, chemical potential, and the aspect ratio of the velocity distribution. These results agree well with previous ground state numerical solutions of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation given by Dalfovo et al. [Phys. Rev. A 53 （1996） 2477] This new method is simple compared to other methods used to solve numerically the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, and one can obtain analytic and reliable results.     

Interactions between Components of Various Vector Solitons in Bose-Einstein Condensates

We investigate the interactions between components of various vector solitons in Bos-Einstein condensates by means of the least action principle, and derive the effective potentials for different vector solitons, which indicate that the interactions are of short range, and may be repulsive or attractive decided by the different intra- and inter-species interactions in such a system. In the case of attraction, the two solitons will oscillate about and pass through each other around the equilibrium state. The comparison of analytical results with mumertical simulation is presented.     

Studies of bosons in optical lattices in a harmonic potential

We present a theoretical study of Bose condensation and specific heat of non-interacting bosons in finite lattices in harmonic potentials in one, two, and three dimensions. We numerically diagonalize the Hamiltonian to obtain the energy levels of the systems. Using the energy levels thus obtained, we investigate the temperature dependence, dimensionality effects, lattice size dependence, and evolution to the bulk limit of the condensate fraction and the specific heat. Some preliminary results on the specific heat of fermions in optical lattices are also presented. The results obtained are contextualized within the current experimental and theoretical scenario.     

Density-density correlation of ultracold atomic gases released from a series of attractive potentials

The purpose of this paper is to explore the density-density correlation for the ultracold atomic gases released from a series of attractive potentials. It is found that the interference fringes in the density-density correlation reflect in a unique way the arrangement of these attractive potentials, which is similar to the Hanbury-Brown-Twiss stellar interferometer. To clearly show this, after a general theoretical study, we study in detail the situations for a series of attractive potentials arranged along the circumferences of an ellipse and a circle. An experimental scheme to observe this theoretical predication is discussed.     

The kinetic energy partition method applied to a confined quantum harmonic oscillator in a one-dimensional box

A new, physically motivated, basis set expansion method for solving quantum eigenvalue problems with competing interaction potentials is presented. In contrast to the usual dissection of the potential energy into unperturbed and perturbing terms, we divide the kinetic energy into partial terms by modifying the mass factor. The partition scheme results in partial kinetic energies with their effective mass factors. By distributing each partial kinetic energy to a respective potential energy to form a subsystem, the total Hamiltonian is written as the sum of subsystem Hamiltonians. Using a linear combination of the subsystem wave-functions to represent the system wave-function we obtain a set of coupled equations for the expansion coefficients, by solving these energies and wave-functions can be obtained. We demonstrate the solution scheme with a standard model system: a confined harmonic oscillator in a one-dimensional box. With only a few (less than ten) basis functions from each subsystem, we can reproduce the exact solutions very accurately, thus showing the applicability of this method.     

Active Brownian motion models and applications to ratchets

We give an overview over recent studies on the model of Active Brownian Motion (ABM) coupled to reservoirs providing free energy which may be converted into kinetic energy of motion. First, we present an introduction to a general concept of active Brownian particles which are capable to take up energy from the source and transform part of it in order to perform various activities. In the second part of our presentation we consider applications of ABM to ratchet systems with different forms of differentiable potentials. Both analytical and numerical evaluations are discussed for three cases of sinusoidal, staircaselike and Mateos ratchet potentials, also with the additional loads modelled by tilted potential structure. In addition, stochastic character of the kinetics is investigated by considering perturbation by Gaussian white noise which is shown to be responsible for driving the directionality of the asymptotic flux in the ratchet. This stochastically driven directionality effect is visualized as a strong nonmonotonic dependence of the statistics of the right versus left trajectories of motion leading to a net current of particles. Possible applications of the ratchet systems to molecular motors are also briefly discussed.     

Dynamics of texture for spinor condensates

We study a dynamics of texture for a two-component spinor bose condensate. This is carried out by adopting a time dependent Landau-Ginzburg Lagrangian for a spinor order parameter. By using a polar form of the spinor order parameter, we obtain a field equation for the texture. In particular we consider a one dimensional model in which we can obtain analytic forms for the textures in terms of elliptic functions of several kinds. We find that these solutions are characterized by a modulus parameter, and changes in this parameter cause structural changes of texture.     

A study on relativistic lagrangian field theories with non-topological soliton solutions

We perform a general analysis of the dynamic structure of two classes of relativistic lagrangian field theories exhibiting static spherically symmetric non-topological soliton solutions. The analysis is concerned with (multi-) scalar fields and generalized gauge fields of compact semi-simple Lie groups. The lagrangian densities governing the dynamics of the (multi-) scalar fields are assumed to be general functions of the kinetic terms, whereas the gauge-invariant lagrangians are general functions of the field invariants. These functions are constrained by requirements of regularity, positivity of the energy and vanishing of the vacuum energy, defining what we call “admissible” models. In the scalar case we establish the general conditions which determine exhaustively the families of admissible lagrangian models supporting this kind of finite-energy solutions. We analyze some explicit examples of these different families, which are defined by the asymptotic and central behaviour of the fields of the corresponding particle-like solutions. From the variational analysis of the energy functional, we show that the admissibility constraints and the finiteness of the energy of the scalar solitons are necessary and sufficient conditions for their linear static stability against small charge-preserving perturbations. Furthermore, we perform a general spectral analysis of the dynamic evolution of the small perturbations around the statically stable solitons, establishing their dynamic stability. Next, we consider the case of many-components scalar fields, showing that the resolution of the particle-like field problem in this case reduces to that of the one-component case. The study of these scalar models is a necessary step in the analysis of the gauge fields. In this latter case, we add the requirement of parity invariance to the admissibility constraints. We determine the general conditions defining the families of admissible gauge-invariant models exhibiting finite-energy electrostatic spherically symmetric solutions which, unlike the (multi-) scalar case, are not always stable. The variational analysis of the energy functional leads now to supplementary restrictions to be imposed on the lagrangian densities in order to ensure the linear stability of the solitons. We establish a correspondence between any admissible soliton-supporting (multi-) scalar model and a family of admissible generalized gauge models supporting finite-energy electrostatic point-like solutions. Conversely, for each admissible soliton-supporting gauge-invariant model there is an associated unique admissible (multi-) scalar model with soliton solutions. This shows the exhaustive character of the admissibility and stability conditions in determining the class of soliton-supporting generalized gauge models. The usual Born-Infeld electrodynamic theory and its non-abelian extensions are shown to be (very particular) examples of one of these families.     

Kinetic Energy of Trapped Ions Cooled by Buffer Gas

The average kinetic energy of 40 Ca＋ ions is measured by the method of evaporating ions in an rf ion trap. The kinetic energy of the ion 40Ca＋ varies from 0.5eV to 0.2eV with changing buffer gas pressure from 10^-7 mbar to 10^-5 mbar. The Brownian motion model is also introduced to calculate the average kinetic energy of the trapped ions.     

Solution of the Dirac equation by separation of variables in spherical coordinates for a large class of non-central electromagnetic potentials

A systematic and intuitive approach for the separation of variables of the three-dimensional Dirac equation in spherical coordinates is presented. Using this approach, we consider coupling of the Dirac spinor to electromagnetic four-vector potential that satisfies the Lorentz gauge. The space components of the potential have angular (non-central) dependence such that the Dirac equation becomes separable in all coordinates. We obtain exact solutions for a class of three-parameter static electromagnetic potential whose time component is the Coulomb potential. The relativistic energy spectrum and corresponding spinor wave functions are obtained. The Aharonov–Bohm and magnetic monopole potentials are included in these solutions.     

Stability Diagrams of a Bose-Einstein Condensate in a Periodic Array of Quantum Wells

With the help of a set of exact closed-form solutions to the stationary Gross Pitaevskii equation, we compre-hensively investigate Landau and dynamical instabilities of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a periodic array of quantum wells. In the tight-binding limit, the anaiyticai expressions for both Landau and dynamical instabilities are obtained in terms of the compressibility and effective mass of the BEC system. Then the stability phase diagrams are shown to be similar to the one in the case of the sinusoidal optical lattice.     

Solutions of Two Kinds of Non-Isospectral Generalized Nonlinear Schrodinger Equation Related to Bose-Einstein Condensates

Two non-isospectral generalized nonlinear Schrodinger （ONLS） equations, which are two important models of nonlinear excitations of matter waves in Bose-Einstein condensates, are studied. Two novel transformations are constructed such that these two GNLS equations are transformed to the well-known nonlinear Schr6dinger （NLS） equation, which is an isospectral equation. Therefore, once one solution of the NLS equation is provided, we can immediately obtain one solution for two ONLS equations by these transformations. Thus it is unnecessary to solve these two non-isospectral GNLS equations directly. Soliton solutions and periodic solutions are obtained for them by two transformations from the corresponding solutions of the NLS equation, which are generated by Darboux transformation.     

Matter-wave vortices and solitons in anisotropic optical lattices

Using numerical methods, we construct families of vortical, quadrupole, and fundamental solitons in a two-dimensional (2D) nonlinear-Schrödinger/Gross-Pitaevskii equation which models Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) or photonic crystals. The equation includes the attractive or repulsive cubic nonlinearity and an anisotropic periodic potential. Two types of anisotropy are considered, accounted for by the difference in the strengths of the 1D sublattices, or by a difference in their periods. The limit case of the quasi-1D optical lattice (OL), when one sublattice is missing, is included too. By means of systematic simulations, we identify stability limits for two species of vortex solitons and quadrupoles, of the rhombus and square types. In the attraction model, rhombic vortices and quadrupoles remain stable up to the limit case of the quasi-1D lattice. In the same model, finite stability limits are found for vortices and quadrupoles of the square type, in terms of the anisotropy parameter. In the repulsion model, rhombic vortices and quadrupoles are stable in large parts of the first finite bandgap (FBG). Another species of partly stable anisotropic states is found in the second FBG, subfundamental dipoles, each squeezed into a single cell of the OL. Square-shaped quadrupoles are completely unstable in the repulsion model, while vortices of the same type are stable only in weakly anisotropic OL potentials.