publication:

p-wave stabilization of three-dimensional Bose-Fermi solitons (2012)

Author(s): Parker NG, Smith DA

    Abstract: We explore bright soliton solutions of ultracold Bose-Fermi gases, showing that the presence of p-wave interactions can remove the usual collapse instability and support stable soliton solutions that are global energy minima. A variational model that incorporates the relevant s- and p-wave interactions in the system is established analytically and solved to probe the dependencies of the soliton stationary states on key experimental parameters. Under attractive s-wave interactions, bright solitons exist only as metastable states susceptible to collapse. Remarkably, the presence of repulsive p-wave interactions alleviates this collapse instability. This dramatically widens the range of experimentally achievable soliton solutions and indicates greatly enhanced robustness. While we focus specifically on the boson-fermion pairing of 87Rb and 40K, the stabilization inferred by repulsive p-wave interactions should apply to the wider remit of ultracold Bose-Fermi mixtures.

    • Type of Article: Regular Article
    • Date: 03-01-2012
    • Journal: Physical Review A
    • Volume: 85
    • Issue: 1
    • Pages: 013604
    • Publisher: American Physical Society
    • Publication type: Article
    • Bibliographic status: Published
    Staff

    Dr Nicholas Parker
    Lecturer (Applied Mathematics)