Scattering of solitons in binary Bose–Einstein condensates with spin-orbit and Rabi couplings

Abstract

In this paper, we study the scattering of solitons in a binary Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) including SO and Rabi couplings. To this end, we derive a reduced ODE model in view to provide a variational description of the collisional dynamics. Also, we assume negative intra- and intercomponent interaction strengths, such that one obtains localized solutions even in the absence of external potentials. By performing extensive numerical simulations of this model we observe that, for specific conditions, the final propagation velocity of the scattered solitons can become highly sensitive to small changes in the initial conditions. Additionally, there are infinitely many intervals of regularity emerging from the obtained chaotic-like regions and forming a fractal-like structure of reflection/transmission windows. Finally, we investigate how the value of the spin-orbit coupling strength changes the critical velocities, which are minimum/maximum values for the occurrence of solitons bound-states, as well as the fractal-like structure.