Controlled formation and reflection of a bright solitary matter-wave

TL;DR

This paper reports the controlled creation and observation of bright solitary matter-waves from Bose-Einstein condensates, opening new avenues for studying their dynamics and potential applications in quantum technologies.

Contribution

It demonstrates the first controlled formation of 3D bright solitary matter-waves from Bose-Einstein condensates and their propagation in an optical waveguide.

Findings

Successful formation of bright solitary matter-waves from BECs.

Observation of their stable propagation in an optical waveguide.

Potential applications in interferometry and quantum state engineering.

Abstract

Solitons are non-dispersive wave solutions that arise in a diverse range of nonlinear systems, stablised by a focussing or defocussing nonlinearity. First observed in shallow water, solitons have subsequently been studied in many other fields including nonlinear optics, biophysics, astrophysics, plasma and particle physics. They are characterised by well localised wavepackets that maintain their initial shape and amplitude for all time, even following collisions with other solitons. Here we report the controlled formation of bright solitary matter-waves, the 3D analog to solitons, from Bose-Einstein condensates of 85Rb and observe their propagation in an optical waveguide. These results pave the way for new experimental studies of bright solitary matterwave dynamics to elucidate the wealth of existing theoretical work and to explore an array of potential applications including novel interferometric devices, the study of short-range atom-surface potentials and the realisation of Schrodingercat states.