Effects of periodic optical lattice potential on dark solitons in a Bose--Einstein condensate

This paper investigates the dynamics of dark solitons in a Bose--Einstein condensate with a magnetic trap and an optical lattice (OL) trap, and analyses the effects of the periodic OL potential on the dynamics by applying the variational approach based on the renormalized integrals of motion. The results show that the dark soliton becomes only a standing-wave and free propagation of the dark soliton is not possible when the periodic length of the OL potential is approximately equal to the effective width of the dark soliton. When the periodic length is very small or very large, the effects of the OL potential on the dark soliton will be sharply reduced. Finally, the numerical results confirm these theoretical findings.