Matter-wave solitons of collisionally inhomogeneous condensates

TL;DR

This paper studies how spatially varying nonlinearity affects matter-wave solitons in Bose-Einstein condensates, revealing controllable soliton dynamics through inhomogeneous interactions.

Contribution

It introduces an analysis of matter-wave solitons with inhomogeneous nonlinearity using the Gross-Pitaevskii equation and effective equations of motion, highlighting new control mechanisms.

Findings

Good agreement between numerical and theoretical results

Spatial nonlinearity creates a gravitational-like potential

Nonlinearity variation influences soliton motion

Abstract

We investigate the dynamics of matter-wave solitons in the presence of a spatially varying atomic scattering length and nonlinearity. The dynamics of bright and dark solitary waves is studied using the corresponding Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The numerical results are shown to be in very good agreement with the predictions of the effective equations of motion derived by adiabatic perturbation theory. The spatially dependent nonlinearity leads to a gravitational potential that allows to influence the motion of both fundamental as well as higher order solitons.