Pulsating instability of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice

Abstract

We find numerically that in the limit of weak atom-atom interactions a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice may develop a pulsating dynamical instability in which the atoms nearly periodically form a peak in the occupation numbers of the lattice sites, and then return to the unstable initial state. Multiple peaks behaving similarly may also occur. Simple arguments show that the pulsating instability is a remnant of integrability, and give a handle on the relevant physical scales.

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Pulsating and persistent vector solitons in a Bose-Einstein condensate in a lattice upon phase separation instability
• $q$-Breathers in finite lattices: nonlinearity and weak disorder
• Nonlinearity from quantum mechanics: Dynamically unstable Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well trap
• Quantum dynamics of instability-induced pulsations of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice
• Instabilities of a matter wave in a matter grating
• q-Breathers in Discrete Nonlinear Schroedinger arrays with weak disorder