Dynamics of a pair of overlapping polar bright solitons in spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates

Abstract

We analyze the dynamics of both population and spin densities, emerging from the spatial overlap between two distinct polar bright solitons in spin-1 spinor condensates. The dynamics of overlapping solitons in scalar condensates exhibits soliton fusion, atomic switching from one soliton to another, and repulsive dynamics depending on the extent of overlap and the relative phase between the solitons. The scalar case also helps us understand the dynamics of the vector solitons in which the ratio between spin-dependent and spin-independent interaction strengths also plays a vital role. In the absence of spin-changing collisions, we observe Josephson-like oscillations for each spin component leading to the emergence of oscillating domain walls. In the presence of spin-dependent interactions, the overlapping polar solitons may emerge as ferromagnetic solitons or oscillatons or a combination of both. In the end, we discuss the experimental procedure to observe the same dynamics using a rubidium spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate setup