Dark soliton past a finite-size obstacle

Nicolas Bilas (1) , Nicolas Pavloff (1)

1 LPTMS - Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Modèles Statistiques

We consider the collision of a dark soliton with an obstacle in a quasi-one-dimensional Bose condensate. We show that in many respects the soliton behaves as an effective classical particle of mass twice the mass of a bare particle, evolving in an effective potential which is a convolution of the actual potential describing the obstacle. Radiative effects beyond this approximation are also taken into account. The emitted waves are shown to form two counterpropagating wave packets, both moving at the speed of sound. We determine, at leading order, the total amount of radiation emitted during the collision and compute the acceleration of the soliton due to the collisional process. It is found that the radiative process is quenched when the velocity of the soliton reaches the velocity of sound in the system.

Mots clés: matter waves

Domaines: Mécanique statistique [cond-mat.stat-mech]; Formation de Structures et Solitons [nlin.PS]

Nicolas Bilas, Nicolas Pavloff. Dark soliton past a finite-size obstacle. Physical Review A : Atomic, molecular, and optical physics [1990-2015], 2005, 72, pp.33618. ⟨hal-00003746v3⟩