Fission and Fusion of Two Bright Solitons in a Growing Bose--Einstein Condensate

We analytically study the interaction characteristics of two bright solitons in a one-dimensional growing Bose- Einstein condensate with time-dependent periodic atomic scattering length. It is shown that the interaction between two bright solitons can generate fission and fusion in the presence of both time-dependent periodic atomic scattering length and the growing case. Furthermore, we propose experimental protocols to realize these interaction phenomena by varying the scattering length via the Feshbach resonance in the future experiment.     

Dark Soliton of a Growing Bose--Einstein Condensate in an External Trap

The dynamics of dark soliton in a growing Bose-Einstein condensate with an external magnetic trap are investigated by the variational approach based on the renormalized integrals of motion. The stationary states as physical solutions to the describing equation are obtained, and the evolution of the dark soliton is numerically simulated. The numerical results confirm the theoretical analysis and show that the dynamics depend strictly on the initial condition, the gain coefficient and the external potential.     

Dynamics of Bright/Dark Solitons in Bose--Einstein Condensates with Time-Dependent Scattering Length and External Potential

We present an analytical study on the dynamics of bright and dark solitons in Bose-Einstein condensates with time-varying atomic scattering length in a time-varying external parabolic potential. A set of exact soliton solutions of the one-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equation are obtained, including fundamental bright solitons, higher-order bright solitons, and dark solitons. The results show that the soliton＇s parameters （amplitude, width, and period） can be changed in a controllable manner by changing the scattering length and external potential. This may be helpful to design experiments.     

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.     

Dynamics of Bright Solitons in Bose-Einstein Condensates with Complicated Potential

We present analytical solutions of the one-dimensional nonlinear Schrodinger equations of Bose-Einstein condensates in an expulsive parabolic background with a complex potential and gravitational field, by performing the Darboux transformation from a trivial seed solution. It is shown that under a safe range of parameter, the shape of bright soliton can be controlled well by adjusting the experimental parameter of the ratio of axial oscillation to radial oscillation and feeding condensates from a thermal cloud. The gravitational field can change the contrail of the bright soliton trains without changing their peak and width.     

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.     

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.     

Josephson Dynamics of a Bose-Einstein Condensate Trapped in a Double-Well Potential

The Josephson equations for a Bose Einstein Condensate gas trapped in a double-well potential are derived with the two-mode approximation by the Gross Pitaevskii equation. The dynamical characteristics of the equations are obtained by the numerical phase diagrams. The nonlinear self-trapping effect appeared in the phase diagrams are emphatically discussed, and the condition EcN 〉 4E3 is presented.     

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.     

Nonlinear phenomena in degenerate quantum gases

In this introductory survey, we give an overview of the main physical problems and corresponding themes of research addressed in this Special Issue. We also briefly discuss some avenues of potential interest for future research in degenerate quantum gases.     

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.     

Nonlinear Wave in a Disc-Shaped Bose-Einstein Condensate

We discuss the possible nonlinear waves of atomic matter wave in a Bose-Einstein condensate. One and two of two-dimensional （2D） dark solitons in the Bose-Einstein condensed system are investigated. A rich dynamics is studied for the interactions between two solitons. The interaction profiles of two solitons are greatly different if the angle between them are different. If the angle is small enough, the maximum amplitude during the interaction between two solitons is even less than that of a single soliton. However, if the angle is large enough, the maximum amplitude of two solitons can gradually attend to the sum of two soliton amplitudes.     

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.     

Rosen--Zener Transition in a Nonlinear System for Two-Component Bose--Einstein Condensates in Optical Lattices

We study the Rosen-Zener transition （RZT） in a nonlinear system for two-component Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices. It is found that the percentage of the components could affect the quantum transition dramatically. For the component with large percentage it is equivalent that the effect of the nonlinearity is stronger, whereas for the component with small percentage the effect is weaker. We also find that the nonlinearity c11 can affect the quantum transition dramatically. This is similar to that reported from Ref. [14]. Compared with one-component systems, however, the effect of the nonlinearity is decreased due to the two components of the BEGs in optical lattices. Furthermore, the effect of the coupling nonlinearity between two components c12 is studied. The component with large percentage is more affected by the nonlinearity than that with small-percentage component.     

Integrability of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation with Feshbach resonance management

In this Letter we study the integrability of a class of Gross-Pitaevskii equations managed by Feshbach resonance in an expulsive parabolic external potential. By using WTC test, we find a condition under which the Gross-Pitaevskii equation is completely integrable. Under the present model, this integrability condition is completely consistent with that proposed by Serkin, Hasegawa, and Belyaeva [V.N. Serkin, A. Hasegawa, T.L. Belyaeva, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2007) 074102]. Furthermore, this integrability can also be explicitly shown by a transformation, which can convert the Gross-Pitaevskii equation into the well-known standard nonlinear Schrödinger equation. By this transformation, each exact solution of the standard nonlinear Schrödinger equation can be converted into that of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, which builds a systematical connection between the canonical solitons and the so-called nonautonomous ones. The finding of this transformation has a significant contribution to understanding the essential properties of the nonautonomous solitons and the dynamics of the Bose-Einstein condensates by using the Feshbach resonance technique.     

Complete and orthonormal eigenfunctions of excitations to a one-dimensional dark soliton

We study linear excitations to a one-dimensional dark soliton described by a defocusing nonlinear Schödinger equation. By solving an eigenvalue problem for the excitations we obtain all eigenvalues and eigenfunctions and prove rigorously that these eigenfunctions are orthonormal and form a complete set. We then use the eigenfunctions to obtain the exact form of linear excitations for any given initial condition and to investigate the transverse stability of the dark soliton. The rigorous results reported in the present work can be applied to study the dynamics of dark solitons in various nonlinear optical media and Bose-Einstein condensates.     

Boundary-Dependent Chaotic Regions for a Bose-Einstein Condensate Interacting with Laser Field

Spatial chaos of a Bose Einstein condensate perturbed by a weak laser standing wave and a weak laser δ pulse is studied. By using the perturbed chaotic solution we investigate the new type of Melnikov chaotic regions, which depend on an integration constant co determined by the boundary conditions. It is shown that when the │co│ values are small, the chaotic region corresponds to small values of laser wave vector k, and the chaotic region for the larger h values is related to the large │co│ values. The result is confirmed numerically by finding the chaotic and regular orbits on the Poincarg section for the two different parameter regions. Thus, for a fixed co the adjustment of k from a small value to large value can transform the chaotic region into the regular one or on the contrary, which suggests a feasible method for eliminating or generating Melnikov chaos.     

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.     

Matter-wave solitons in the presence of collisional inhomogeneities: Perturbation theory and the impact of derivative terms

We study the dynamics of bright and dark matter-wave solitons in the presence of a spatially varying nonlinearity. When the spatial variation does not involve zero crossings, a transformation is used to bring the problem to a standard nonlinear Schrödinger form, but with two additional terms: an effective potential one and a non-potential term. We illustrate how to apply perturbation theory of dark and bright solitons to the transformed equations. We develop the general case, but primarily focus on the non-standard special case whereby the potential term vanishes, for an inverse square spatial dependence of the nonlinearity. In both cases of repulsive and attractive interactions, appropriate versions of the soliton perturbation theory are shown to accurately describe the soliton dynamics.     

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.