Controlled formation and reflection of a bright solitary matter-wave

Marchant, A.L.; Billam, T.P.; Wiles, T.P.; Yu, M.M.H.; Gardiner, S.A.; Cornish, S.L.

Abstract

Bright solitons are non-dispersive wave solutions, arising in a diverse range of nonlinear, one-dimensional systems, including atomic Bose–Einstein condensates with attractive interactions. In reality, cold-atom experiments can only approach the idealized one-dimensional limit necessary for the realization of true solitons. Nevertheless, it remains possible to create bright solitary waves, the three-dimensional analogue of solitons, which maintain many of the key properties of their one-dimensional counterparts. Such solitary waves offer many potential applications and provide a rich testing ground for theoretical treatments of many-body quantum systems. Here we report the controlled formation of a bright solitary matter-wave from a Bose–Einstein condensate of 85Rb, which is observed to propagate over a distance of ~1.1 mm in 150 ms with no observable dispersion. We demonstrate the reflection of a solitary wave from a repulsive Gaussian barrier and contrast this to the case of a repulsive condensate, in both cases finding excellent agreement with theoretical simulations using the three-dimensional Gross–Pitaevskii equation.

Citation

Marchant, A., Billam, T., Wiles, T., Yu, M., Gardiner, S., & Cornish, S. (2013). Controlled formation and reflection of a bright solitary matter-wave. Nature Communications, 4, Article 1865. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2893

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: May 1, 2013
• Deposit Date: Apr 9, 2013
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 13, 2013
• Journal: Nature Communications
• Electronic ISSN: 2041-1723
• Publisher: Nature Research
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 4
• Article Number: 1865
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2893
• Keywords: Physical sciences, Atomic and molecular physics.
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1456550