arXiv · 1605.01069
Onset of transverse instabilities of confined dark solitons
Abstract
We investigate propagating dark soliton solutions of the two-dimensional defocusing nonlinear Schr\"odinger / Gross-Pitaevskii (NLS/GP) equation that are transversely confined to propagate in an infinitely long channel. Families of single, vortex, and multi-lobed solitons are computed using a spectrally-accurate numerical scheme. The multi-lobed solitons are unstable to small transverse perturbations. However, the single-lobed solitons are stable if they are sufficiently confined along the transverse direction, which explains their effective one-dimensional dynamics. The emergence of a transverse modulational instability is characterized in terms of a spectral bifurcation. The critical confinement width for this bifurcation is found to coincide with the existence of a propagating vortex solution and the onset of a "snaking" instability in the dark soliton dynamics that, in turn, give rise to vortex or multi-vortex excitations. These results shed light on the superfluidic hydrodynamics of dispersive shock waves in Bose-Einstein condensates and nonlinear optics.
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M. A. Hoefer, B. Ilan. 2016-05-03. Onset of transverse instabilities of confined dark solitons. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.94.013609
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