Stability Diagrams of a Bose-Einstein Condensate in Excited Bloch Bands

Landau and dynamical instabilities o/a Bose-Einstein condensate （BEC） in the excited bands of a one-dimensional optical lattice are investigated by the Gross Pitaevskii theory. Our results show that there always exists Landau instability for a BEC in the whole region of excited bands. We also map out the dangerous zones of the dynamical instability. The experimental implications of the stability diagram are discussed.     

Controlling Chaos Probability of a Bose-Einstein Condensate in a Weak Optical Superlattice

The spatial chaos probability of a Bose-Einstein condensate perturbed by a weak optical superlattice is studied. It is demonstrated that the spatial. chaotic solution appears with a certain probability in a given parameter region under a random boundary condition. The effects of the lattice depths and wave vectors on the chaos probability are illustrated, and different regions associated with different chaos probabilities are found. This suggests a feasible scheme for suppressing and strengthening chaos by adjusting the optical superlattice experimentaJly.     

Suppression of Chaos in a Bose-Einstein Condensate Loaded into a Moving Optical Superlattice Potential

We have shown that the application of modulating the secondary lattice is an efficient route to suppressing the generation of chaotic traveling waves of a Bose-Einstein Condensate with attractive interatomic interaction loaded into a moving optical superlattiee consisting of two lattices. With the Melnikov method, we obtain the optimal value of the relative phase between the two lattice harmonics for the control of chaos. We also find that the regularization route as the potential depth of the secondary lattice is varied and fairly rich, including the period-doubling bifurcations.     

Dynamical Stability of Gap Soliton of One-Dimensional Condensate in Optical Lattices with Strong Interatomic Interaction

By developing the multiple scales method, we analytically study the dynamics properties of gap soliton of Bose- Einstein condensate in optical lattices. It is shown that the gap soliton will appear at Brillouin zone edge of linear band spectrum of the condensates when the interatomic interaction strength is larger than the lattice depth. Moreover, the density of gap soliton starts to be relatively small, while it increases with time and becomes stable.     

Collapse of triaxial bright solitons in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates

We study triaxial bright solitons made of attractive Bose-condensed atoms characterized by the absence of confinement in the longitudinal axial direction but trapped by an anisotropic harmonic potential in the transverse plane. By numerically solving the three-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equation we investigate the effect of the transverse trap anisotropy on the critical interaction strength above which there is the collapse of the condensate. The comparison with previous predictions [A. Gammal, L. Tomio, T. Frederico, Phys. Rev. A 66 (2002) 043619] shows significant differences for large anisotropies.     

Quantum field theoretical analysis on unstable behavior of Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices

We study the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates flowing in optical lattices on the basis of quantum field theory. For such a system, a Bose-Einstein condensate shows an unstable behavior which is called the dynamical instability. The unstable system is characterized by the appearance of modes with complex eigenvalues. Expanding the field operator in terms of excitation modes including complex ones, we attempt to diagonalize the unperturbative Hamiltonian and to find its eigenstates. It turns out that although the unperturbed Hamiltonian is not diagonalizable in the conventional bosonic representation the appropriate choice of physical states leads to a consistent formulation. Then we analyze the dynamics of the system in the regime of the linear response theory. Its numerical results are consistent with those given by the discrete nonlinear Schrödinger equation.     

Ratchet-induced matter-wave transport and soliton collisions in Bose-Einstein condensates

We study the dynamics of bright matter-wave solitons in a Bose-Einstein condensate with negative scattering length under the influence of a time-periodic ratchet potential. The potential is formed by a one-dimensional bichromatic optical lattice which flashes on and off so that the time average of its amplitude vanishes. Due to the broken space and time-reversal symmetries of the potential, the soliton is transported with a nonzero average velocity. By employing the non-dissipative mean-field model for the matter waves, we study the dependence of the transport velocity on the initial state of the soliton and show how the properties of the individual localized states affect the outcome of their collisions. A useful insight into the transport properties is provided by Hamiltonian theory for the mean field, which treats the extended matter-wave excitation as an effective classical particle.     

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.     

Dynamical stabilization of self-trapping of two weakly coupled Bose-Einstein condensates

We investigate the effect of an external periodic driving field on the self-trapping of two weakly coupled Bose-Einstein condensates with dissipation. It is shown that the macroscopic self-trapping can be stabilized against dissipation by a high frequency periodic driving field. The parameter ranges for stabilizing self-trapping are found analytically and confirmed numerically.     

Vector Solitons and Soliton Collisions in Two-Component Bose-Einstein Condensates

With realistic parameters, both analytical and computational studies demonstrate the feasibility of forming bright-bright vector solitons in a self-repulsive two-component Bose-Einstein condensate with attractive intercomponent interaction. Moreover, the stability of such solitons is confirmed by direct numerical simulations, by a Bogoliubov spectrum analysis, and by examining the collisions between two vector solitons. Our results are of considerable experimental interest.     

Periodic spin domains of spinor Bose-Einstein condensates in an optical lattice

The periodic spin domains of spinor Bose-Einstein condensates confined in a one-dimensional optical lattice are studied in terms of the equation of motion of the spinor which is reduced to the nonlinear Schrödinger equation with the help of Holstein-Primakoff transformation. It is shown that the spin domains obtained analytically can be easily controlled by adjusting the light-induced dipole-dipole interaction, which is realizable in optical lattice created by red-detuned laser beams with modulating intensity. The dynamical stability of the spin domains is also demonstrated.     

Modulational Instability of （1 ＋ 1）-Dimensional Bose-Einstein Condensate with Three-Body Interatomic Interaction

The modulational instability of Bose-Einstein condensate with three-body interatomic interaction and external harmonic trapping potential is investigated. Both of our analytical and numerical results show that the external potential will either cause the excitation of modulationally unstable modes or restrain the modulationally unstable modes from growing.     

Motion of a Bose-Einstein Condensate Bright Soliton Incident on a Step-Like Potential

The motion characteristics of a Bose-Einstein condensate bright soliton incident on a local step-like potential barrier are investigated analytically by means of the variational approach. The dynamics of the soliton-potential interaction is studied as well. Then the results are verified by direct numerical simulations of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. It is found that a moving bright soliton can be reflected from or pass over a step-like potentiaI in a controllable fashion, the critical velocity depends on the width of the soliton and the parameters of the step, and the motion trajectory of the soliton does not depend on its phase. The atom density envelope of the soliton is changed as the result of the interaction between the soliton and the step-like potential.     

Controlled Manipulation with a Bose--Einstein Condensates N-Soliton Train under the Influence of Harmonic and Tilted Periodic Potentials

A model of the perturbed complex Toda chain （PCTC） to describe the dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate （BEC） N-soliton train trapped in an applied combined external potential consisting of both a weak harmonic and tilted periodic component is first developed. Using the developed theory, the BEC N-soliton train dynamics is shown to be well approximated by 4N coupled nonlinear differential equations, which describe the fundamental interactions in the system arising from the interplay of amplitude, velocity, centre-of-mass position, and phase. The simplified analytic theory allows for an efficient and convenient method for characterizing the BEC N-soliton train behaviour. It further gives the critical values of the strength of the potential for which one or more localized states can be extracted from a soliton train and demonstrates that the BEC N-soliton train can move selectively from one lattice site to another by simply manipulating the strength of the potential.     

Stabilities of one-dimensional stationary states of Bose-Einstein condensates

We explore the dynamical stabilities of a quasi-one-dimensional (1D) Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) consisting of fixed N atoms with time-independent external potential. For the stationary states with zero flow density the general solution of the perturbed time evolution equation is constructed, and the stability criterions concerning the initial conditions and system parameters are established. Taking the lattice potential case as an example, the stability and instability regions on the parameter space are found. The results suggest a method for selecting experimental parameters and adjusting initial conditions to suppress the instabilities.     

Collective Excitation and Quantum Depletion 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 （GP） equation, we calculate the collective excitation and quantum depletion of a weakly interacting Bose gas in the presence of a periodic array of quantum wells. The excitation spectrum （Bogoliubov spectrum） is obtained from the solution of the linearized time-dependent GP equation, which develops energy bands hωj（ p） periodic in quasi-momentum space. Moreover, we calculate the excitation strengths Zj（ p） relative to the density operator and then the dynamic structure factor S（ p,ω）. Accordingly, the analytical expressions of quantum depletion of the system are obtained. We find that the quantum depletion is enhanced when the interatomic interactions become larger and the potential is sufficiently deep. The conditions for the possible experimental realization of our scenario are also proposed.     

Matter-wave interference in Bose-Einstein condensates: A dispersive hydrodynamic perspective

The interference pattern generated by the merging interaction of two Bose-Einstein condensates reveals the coherent, quantum wave nature of matter. An asymptotic analysis of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation in the small dispersion (semiclassical) limit, experimental results, and three-dimensional numerical simulations show that this interference pattern can be interpreted as a modulated soliton train generated by the interaction of two rarefaction waves propagating through the vacuum. The soliton train is shown to emerge from a linear, trigonometric interference pattern and is found by use of the Whitham modulation theory for nonlinear waves. This dispersive hydrodynamic perspective offers a new viewpoint on the mechanism driving matter-wave interference.     

Effect of the lattice alignment on Bloch oscillations of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a square optical lattice

We consider a Bose-Einstein condensate of ultracold atoms loaded into a square optical lattice and subject to a static force. For vanishing atom-atom interactions the atoms perform periodic Bloch oscillations for arbitrary direction of the force. We study stability of these oscillations for non-vanishing interactions, which is shown to depend on an alignment of the force vector with respect to the lattice crystallographic axes. If the force is aligned along any of the axes, the mean field approach can be used to identify the stability conditions. On the contrary, for a misaligned force one has to employ the microscopic approach, which predicts periodic modulation of Bloch oscillations in the limit of a large forcing.     

Quantum field theoretical description of unstable behavior of trapped Bose-Einstein condensates with complex eigenvalues of Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations

The Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations are used for a number of theoretical works on the trapped Bose-Einstein condensates. These equations are known to give the energies of the quasi-particles when all the eigenvalues are real. We consider the case in which these equations have complex eigenvalues. We give the complete set including those modes whose eigenvalues are complex. The quantum fields which represent neutral atoms are expanded in terms of the complete set. It is shown that the state space is an indefinite metric one and that the free Hamiltonian is not diagonalizable in the conventional bosonic representation. We introduce a criterion to select quantum states describing the metastablity of the condensate, called the physical state conditions. In order to study the instability, we formulate the linear response of the density against the time-dependent external perturbation within the regime of Kubo’s linear response theory. Some states, satisfying all the physical state conditions, give the blow-up and damping behavior of the density distributions corresponding to the complex eigenmodes. It is qualitatively consistent with the result of the recent analyses using the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation.     

Superfluid properties of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice confined in a cavity

We study the effect of a one dimensional optical lattice in a cavity field with quantum properties on the superfluid dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). In the cavity the influence of atomic backaction and the external driving pump become important and modify the optical potential. Due to the coupling between the condensate wavefunction and the cavity modes, the cavity light field develops a band structure. This study reveals that the pump and the cavity emerges as a new handle to control the superfluid properties of the BEC.