Two-dimensional vector solitons in Bose-Einstein-condensate mixtures

Abstract

We derive two decoupled KP-I equations from the system of two-dimensional (2D) Gross-Pitaevskii equations for a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), using the multiple-scale expansion method. We produce asymptotic analytical vector-soliton solutions, viz., dark-dark (DD) and dark-antidark (DAD) one-soliton and two-soliton states, by tuning coupling constants and norms of species, and address their evolution numerically under the action of the harmonic-oscillator (HO) trap, in the local-density approximation. We find that shallow single-line DD and DAD solitons are stable, while single-lump DAD solutions (weakly localized truly-2D states) split and lead to nucleation of two half-vortices. We also find that the BEC mixture placed in the HO trap admits stable asymptotic multi-soliton solutions, e.g., two-line DD and DAD solitons and two-lump DD ones, which were not reported before. In particular, the two-lump solutions describe inelastic collisions between the lumps. The analysis developed in this work may also be applied to systems with spin-orbit coupling and gauge fields, which have been realized in atomic BEC.