Oscillating solitons in a three-component Bose-Einstein condensate

Phys Rev Lett. 2010 Sep 17;105(12):125302. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.125302. Epub 2010 Sep 14.

Abstract

We investigate the properties of three-component Bose-Einstein condensate systems with spin exchange interactions. We consider different coupling constants from those very special ones leading to exact solutions known in the literature. When two solitons collide, a spin component oscillation of the two emerging entities is observed. This behavior seems to be generic. A mathematical model is derived for the emerging solitons. It describes the new oscillatory phenomenon extremely well. Surprisingly, the model is in fact an exact solution to the initial equations. This comes as a bonus.