Controlling collapse in Bose-Einstein condensates by temporal modulation of the scattering length

TL;DR

This paper investigates how temporal modulation of the scattering length via an ac magnetic field can stabilize or induce collapse in Bose-Einstein condensates, using variational approximation and numerical simulations of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.

Contribution

It introduces a new approach combining variational approximation, direct simulations, and averaging methods to analyze the stability of condensates under time-varying scattering lengths.

Findings

Stable self-confined condensates can exist without external traps in 2D and 3D.

Temporal modulation can act as an effective trap or induce collapse.

Stability in 3D is limited and may lead to collapse despite positive scattering length.

Abstract

We consider, by means of the variational approximation (VA) and direct numerical simulations of the Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equation, the dynamics of 2D and 3D condensates with a scattering length containing constant and harmonically varying parts, which can be achieved with an ac magnetic field tuned to the Feshbach resonance. For a rapid time modulation, we develop an approach based on the direct averaging of the GP equation,without using the VA. In the 2D case, both VA and direct simulations, as well as the averaging method, reveal the existence of stable self-confined condensates without an external trap, in agreement with qualitatively similar results recently reported for spatial solitons in nonlinear optics. In the 3D case, the VA again predicts the existence of a stable self-confined condensate without a trap. In this case, direct simulations demonstrate that the stability is limited in time, eventually switching into collapse, even though the constant part of the scattering length is positive (but not too large). Thus a spatially uniform ac magnetic field, resonantly tuned to control the scattering length, may play the role of an effective trap confining the condensate, and sometimes causing its collapse.