Interaction of Matter-wave Gap Solitons in Optical Lattices

Abstract

We study the mobility and interaction of gap solitons in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) confined by an optical lattice potential. Such localized wavepackets can exist only in the gaps of the matter-wave band-gap spectrum and their interaction properties are shown to serve as a measure of the discreteness imposed on a BEC by the lattice potential. We show that inelastic collisions of two weakly localized near-band-edge gap solitons provide a simple and effective means for generating strongly localized in-gap solitons through soliton fusion. Show more