Solitons in Bose-Einstein condensates

Abstract

In this report we investigate the instability of a dark soliton imprinted in a twodimensional Bose-Einstein condensate. We have shown that depending on the form of the imprinted phase step, the soliton bends and then, via a snake instability, it decays into vortices. We have performed numerical simulations of the time evolution of the imprinted dark soliton in two-dimensions. Finally, we have qualitatively interpreted the theoretical framework that describes this phenomenon in the approximation of weakly interacting bosons