Variational Approach to the Snake Instability of a Bose-Einstein Condensate Soliton

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Tanyeri, Umut, Gürkan, Mehmet Atakan, Keleş, Ahmet, Oktel, Mehmet Özgür
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Tanyeri, Umut
Gürkan, Mehmet Atakan
Keleş, Ahmet
Oktel, Mehmet Özgür
author_facet Tanyeri, Umut
Gürkan, Mehmet Atakan
Keleş, Ahmet
Oktel, Mehmet Özgür
contents Solitons are striking manifestations of nonlinearity, encountered in diverse physical systems such as water waves, nonlinear optics, and Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs). In BECs, dark solitons emerge as exact stationary solutions of the one-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equation. While they can be long-lived in elongated traps, their stability is compromised in higher dimensions due to the snake instability, which leads to the decay of the soliton into vortex structures among other excitations. We investigate the dynamics of a dark soliton in a Bose-Einstein condensate confined in an anisotropic harmonic trap. Using a variational ansatz that incorporates both the transverse bending of the soliton plane and the emergence of vortices along the nodal line, we derive equations of motion governing the soliton's evolution. This approach allows us to identify stable oscillation modes as well as the growth rates of the unstable perturbations. In particular, we determine the critical trap anisotropy required to suppress the snake instability. Our analytical predictions are in good agreement with full numerical simulations of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_04926
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Variational Approach to the Snake Instability of a Bose-Einstein Condensate Soliton
Tanyeri, Umut
Gürkan, Mehmet Atakan
Keleş, Ahmet
Oktel, Mehmet Özgür
Quantum Gases
Solitons are striking manifestations of nonlinearity, encountered in diverse physical systems such as water waves, nonlinear optics, and Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs). In BECs, dark solitons emerge as exact stationary solutions of the one-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equation. While they can be long-lived in elongated traps, their stability is compromised in higher dimensions due to the snake instability, which leads to the decay of the soliton into vortex structures among other excitations. We investigate the dynamics of a dark soliton in a Bose-Einstein condensate confined in an anisotropic harmonic trap. Using a variational ansatz that incorporates both the transverse bending of the soliton plane and the emergence of vortices along the nodal line, we derive equations of motion governing the soliton's evolution. This approach allows us to identify stable oscillation modes as well as the growth rates of the unstable perturbations. In particular, we determine the critical trap anisotropy required to suppress the snake instability. Our analytical predictions are in good agreement with full numerical simulations of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.
title Variational Approach to the Snake Instability of a Bose-Einstein Condensate Soliton
topic Quantum Gases
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.04926