Interaction of matter-wave gap solitons in optical lattices

TL;DR

This paper investigates how matter-wave gap solitons in a Bose-Einstein condensate interact within optical lattices, revealing their inelastic collision behavior and potential for creating highly localized in-gap states.

Contribution

It introduces the study of inelastic collisions of gap solitons in BECs within optical lattices and demonstrates their role in generating strongly localized in-gap solitons.

Findings

Inelastic collisions can fuse weakly localized solitons into strongly localized in-gap solitons.

The interaction properties reflect the discreteness effects of the optical lattice.

Soliton fusion provides a method for creating localized states in BECs.

Abstract

We study mobility and interaction of gap solitons in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) confined by an optical lattice potential. Such localized wavepackets can exist only in the gaps of the matter-wave band-gap spectrum and their interaction properties are shown to serve as a measure of discreteness imposed onto a BEC by the lattice potential. We show that inelastic collisions of two weakly localized near-the-band-edge gap solitons provide simple and effective means for generating strongly localized in-gap solitons through soliton fusion.