Temporal evolution of attractive Bose-Einstein condensate in a quasi 1D cigar-shape trap modeled through the semiclassical limit of the focusing Nonlinear Schroedinger Equation

One-dimensional (1D) Nonlinear Schroedinger Equaation (NLS) provides a good approximation to attractive Bose-Einshtein condensate (BEC) in a quasi 1D cigar-shaped optical trap in certain regimes. 1D NLS is an integrable equation that can be solved through the inverse scattering method. Our observation is that in many cases the parameters of the BEC correspond to the semiclassical (zero dispersion) limit of the focusing NLS. Hence, recent results about the strong asymptotics of the semiclassical limit solutions can be used to describe some interesting phenomena of the attractive 1D BEC. In general, the semiclassical limit of the focusing NLS exibits very strong modulation instability. However, in the case of an analytical initial data, the NLS evolution does displays some ordered structure, that can describe, for example, the bright soliton phenomenon. We discuss some general features of the semiclassical NLS evolution and propose some new observables.

Universality in the profile of the semiclassical limit solutions to the focusing Nonlinear Schroedinger equation at the first breaking curve

We consider the semiclassical (zero-dispersion) limit of the one-dimensional focusing Nonlinear Schroedinger equation (NLS) with decaying potentials. If a potential is a simple rapidly oscillating wave (the period has the order of the semiclassical parameter epsilon) with modulated amplitude and phase, the space-time plane subdivides into regions of qualitatively different behavior, with the boundary between them consisting typically of collection of piecewise smooth arcs (breaking curve(s)). In the first region the evolution of the potential is ruled by modulation equations (Whitham equations), but for every value of the space variable x there is a moment of transition (breaking), where the solution develops fast, quasi-periodic behavior, i.e., the amplitude becomes also fastly oscillating at scales of order epsilon. The very first point of such transition is called the point of gradient catastrophe. We study the detailed asymptotic behavior of the left and right edges of the interface between these two regions at any time after the gradient catastrophe. The main finding is that the first oscillations in the amplitude are of nonzero asymptotic size even as epsilon tends to zero, and they display two separate natural scales; of order epsilon in the parallel direction to the breaking curve in the (x,t)-plane, and of order epsilon ln(epsilon) in a transversal direction. The study is based upon the inverse-scattering method and the nonlinear steepest descent method.