Bright matter-wave soliton collisions at narrow barriers

Helm, J.L.; Billam, T.P.; Gardiner, S.A.

doi:10.1103/physreva.85.053621

Bright matter-wave soliton collisions at narrow barriers

Helm, J.L.; Billam, T.P.; Gardiner, S.A.

Authors

J.L. Helm

T.P. Billam

Professor Simon Gardiner s.a.gardiner@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

We study fast-moving bright solitons in the focusing nonlinear Schrödinger equation perturbed by a narrow Gaussian potential barrier. In particular, we present a general and comprehensive analysis of the case where two fast-moving bright solitons collide at the location of the barrier. In the limiting case of a δ-function barrier, we use an analytic method to show that the relative norms of the outgoing waves depends sinusoidally on the relative phase of the incoming waves, and to determine whether one, or both, of the outgoing waves are bright solitons. We show using numerical simulations that this analytic result is valid in the high velocity limit: outside this limit nonlinear effects introduce a skew to the phase dependence, which we quantify. Finally, we numerically explore the effects of introducing a finite-width Gaussian barrier. Our results are particularly relevant, as they can be used to describe a range of interferometry experiments using bright solitary matter-waves.

Citation

Helm, J., Billam, T., & Gardiner, S. (2012). Bright matter-wave soliton collisions at narrow barriers. Physical Review A, 85(5), Article 053621. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.85.053621

Journal Article Type	Article
Publication Date	May 16, 2012
Deposit Date	May 21, 2012
Publicly Available Date	Feb 12, 2014
Journal	Physical Review A
Print ISSN	1050-2947
Electronic ISSN	1094-1622
Publisher	American Physical Society
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	85
Issue	5
Article Number	053621
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.85.053621