Scattering of matter wave solitons on localized potentials

TL;DR

This paper investigates how matter wave solitons interact with localized potentials, revealing regimes where they behave wave-like or particle-like, and analyzing their reflection and transmission in multi-component condensates.

Contribution

It provides combined numerical and analytical insights into soliton scattering, highlighting the influence of interactions and multi-component dynamics on their behavior.

Findings

Solitons exhibit wave-like or particle-like behavior depending on parameters.

Different reflection and transmission properties are observed for bright and dark components.

The study extends understanding of soliton scattering in multi-species Bose-Einstein condensates.

Abstract

We present numerical and analytical results for the reflection and transmission properties of matter wave solitons impinging on localized scattering potentials in one spatial dimension. Our mean field analysis identifies regimes where the solitons behave more like waves or more like particles as a result of the interplay between the dispersive wave propagation and the attractive interactions between the atoms. For a bright soliton propagating together with a dark soliton void in a two-species Bose-Einstein condensate of atoms with repulsive interactions, we find different reflection and transmission properties of the dark and the bright components.