Formation of Bright Matter-Wave Solitons during the Collapse of Attractive Bose-Einstein Condensates
Simon L. CornishDepartment of Physics, Durham University, Science Laboratories, UK. [email protected]S. T. ThompsonJILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado, and the Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0440, USACarl WiemanJILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado, and the Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0440, USA
2006en
ABI
Abstract
We observe bright matter-wave solitons form during the collapse of (85)Rb condensates in a three-dimensional (3D) magnetic trap. The collapse is induced by using a Feshbach resonance to suddenly switch the atomic interactions from repulsive to attractive. Remnant condensates containing several times the critical number of atoms for the onset of instability are observed to survive the collapse. Under these conditions a highly robust configuration of 3D solitons forms such that each soliton satisfies the condition for stability and neighboring solitons exhibit repulsive interactions.
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