Production of strongly bound 39K bright solitons

S Lepoutre (1) , L Fouché (1) , A Boissé (1) , Gwenaël Berthet (1) , G Salomon (1) , Alain Aspect (1) , Thomas Bourdel (1)

1 Laboratoire Charles Fabry / Optique atomique

We report on the production of 39 K matter-wave bright solitons, i.e., 1D matter-waves that propagate without dispersion thanks to attractive interactions. The volume of the soliton is studied as a function of the scattering length through three-body losses, revealing peak densities as high as ∼ 5 × 10 20 m −3. Our solitons, close to the collapse threshold, are strongly bound and will find applications in fundamental physics and atom interferometry.

Domaines: Physique Atomique [physics.atom-ph]

S Lepoutre, L Fouché, A Boissé, Gwenaël Berthet, G Salomon, et al.. Production of strongly bound 39K bright solitons. Physical Review A : Atomic, molecular, and optical physics [1990-2015], 2016, 94 (5), pp.053626. ⟨hal-01361055v2⟩