Ratchet-induced matter-wave transport and soliton collisions in Bose-Einstein condensates

Dario Poletti, Elena A. Ostrovskaya*, Tristram J. Alexander, Baowen Li, Yuri S. Kivshar

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    16 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    We study the dynamics of bright matter-wave solitons in a Bose-Einstein condensate with negative scattering length under the influence of a time-periodic ratchet potential. The potential is formed by a one-dimensional bichromatic optical lattice which flashes on and off so that the time average of its amplitude vanishes. Due to the broken space and time-reversal symmetries of the potential, the soliton is transported with a nonzero average velocity. By employing the non-dissipative mean-field model for the matter waves, we study the dependence of the transport velocity on the initial state of the soliton and show how the properties of the individual localized states affect the outcome of their collisions. A useful insight into the transport properties is provided by Hamiltonian theory for the mean field, which treats the extended matter-wave excitation as an effective classical particle.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1338-1344
    Number of pages7
    JournalPhysica D: Nonlinear Phenomena
    Volume238
    Issue number15
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 15 Jul 2009

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