Self-guiding of matter waves in optical lattices

Abstract

It is shown numerically that Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices may be localized as self-induced waveguides and that these waveguides may take complex forms, including bends and X junctions. The waveguides are found to support continuous condensate flow, even around multiple right-angle bends. It is demonstrated that pulsed matter-wave transport may also occur along single-site waveguides in the form of solitons and that these solitons may propagate around bends and collide without change of shape or dependence on phase. A scheme based on single-site addressability techniques and the Kibble-Zurek mechanism is proposed for observing these effects.