Quantum Dark Soliton: Non-Perturbative Diffusion of Phase and Position

TL;DR

This paper develops a non-perturbative quantum theory for the zero modes of dark solitons in the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, explaining quantum diffusion of phase and position beyond standard perturbative methods.

Contribution

It introduces a non-perturbative framework to describe quantum phase and position diffusion of dark solitons, addressing limitations of Bogoliubov theory.

Findings

Quantum phase diffusion described non-perturbatively.

Soliton position wave packet disperses beyond initial width.

Zero modes require non-perturbative treatment for accurate quantum dynamics.

Abstract

The dark soliton solution of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation in one dimension has two parameters that do not change the energy of the solution: the global phase of the condensate wave function and the position of the soliton. These degeneracies appear in the Bogoliubov theory as Bogoliubov modes with zero frequencies and zero norms. These ``zero modes'' cannot be quantized as the usual Bogoliubov quasiparticle harmonic oscillators. They must be treated in a non-perturbative way. In this paper I develop non-perturbative theory of zero modes. This theory provides non-perturbative description of quantum phase diffusion and quantum diffusion of soliton position. An initially well localized wave packet for soliton position is predicted to disperse beyond the width of the soliton.