Publication Date

2010

Comments

This is the prepublished version harvested from ArXiv. The published version is located at http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v104/i17/e174101

Abstract

The dynamics of dark matter-wave solitons in elongated atomic condensates are discussed at finite temperatures. Simulations with the stochastic Gross-Pitaevskii equation reveal a noticeable, experimentally observable spread in individual soliton trajectories, attributed to inherent fluctuations in both phase and density of the underlying medium. Averaging over a number of such trajectories (as done in experiments) washes out such background fluctuations, revealing a well-defined temperature-dependent temporal growth in the oscillation amplitude. The average soliton dynamics is well captured by the simpler dissipative Gross-Pitaevskii equation, both numerically and via an analytically derived equation for the soliton center based on perturbation theory for dark solitons.

Pages

-

Volume

104

Issue

17

Journal Title

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS