Multicomponent gap solitons in spinor Bose-Einstein condensates

Beata J. Da̧browska-Wüster*, Elena A. Ostrovskaya, Tristram J. Alexander, Yuri S. Kivshar

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    78 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    We model the nonlinear behavior of spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) with repulsive spin-independent interactions and either ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic (polar) spin-dependent interactions, loaded into a one-dimensional optical lattice potential. We show that both types of BECs exhibit dynamical instabilities and may form spatially localized multicomponent structures. The localized states of the spinor matter waves take the form of vector gap solitons and self-trapped waves that exist only within gaps of the linear Bloch-wave band-gap spectrum. Of special interest are the nonlinear localized states that do not exhibit a common spatial density profile shared by all condensate components, and consequently cannot be described by the single mode approximation (SMA) frequently employed within the framework of the mean-field treatment. We show that the non-SMA states can exhibits Josephson-like internal oscillations and self-magnetization, i.e., intrinsic precession of the local spin. Finally, we demonstrate that nonstationary states of a spinor BEC in a lattice exhibit coherent undamped spin-mixing dynamics, and that their controlled conversion into a stationary state can be achieved by the application of an external magnetic field.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number023617
    JournalPhysical Review A - Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
    Volume75
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 21 Feb 2007

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