Dark-bright solitons in Bose-Einstein condensates: dynamics, scattering, and oscillation

Abstract

In this thesis, we have studied the behavior of two-component dark-bright solitons in multicomponent Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) analytically and numerically in different situations. We utilized various analytical methods including the variational method and perturbation theory. By imprinting a linear phase on the bright component only, we were able to impart a velocity relative to the dark component and thereby we obtain an internal oscillation between the two components. We find that there are two modes of the oscillation of the dark-bright soliton. The first one is the famous Goldstone mode. This mode represents a moving dark-bright soliton without internal oscillation and is related to the continuous translational symmetry of the underlying equations of motion in the uniform potential. The second mode is the oscillation of the two components relative to each other. We compared the results obtained from the variational method with numerical simulations and found that the oscillation frequency range is 90 to 405 Hz and therefore observable in multicomponent Bose-Einstein condensate experiments. Also, we studied the binding energy and found a critical value for the breakup of the dark-bright soliton. Building on these results, we have studied another situation where we have the dark-bright soliton oscillate in a harmonic potential. We found for weak trapping the internal modes are nearly independent of center of mass motion of the dark-bright soliton. In contrast, in tighter traps the internal modes couple strongly to the center of mass motion, showing that for dark-bright solitons in a harmonic potential the center of mass and relative degrees of freedom are not independent. We found this result is robust against noise in the initial condition and should, therefore, be experimentally observable. In addition, we have studied the interaction between a moving dark-bright soliton in a uniform background with internal oscillation and a fixed impurity, modeled by a delta function potential. The interaction excites different modes in the system. Our analytical model capture two of these modes: the relative oscillation between the two components, as well as the in-sync oscillation of the widths. The numerical simulations allow further internal modes like out-of-sync oscillations of the soliton widths and even shape deformations of various kinds. We identify regions in parameter space for the transmission, reflection and inelastic scattering of the dark-bright soliton by the potential barrier. We have studied the velocity of dark-bright solitons described with an ansatz that uses one center of mass variable to represent the position of the two components. We found for a dark-bright soliton the maximum velocity is limited by the relative number of atoms in the bright component as compared to the size of the hole or density notch created by the dark component. Above this critical velocity the dark-bright soliton develops internal oscillations, and eventually unbinds and breaks apart.