Interactions and Collisions of Discrete Breathers in Two-Species Bose-Einstein Condensates in Optical Lattices

Abstract

The dynamics of static and travelling breathers in two-species Bose-Einstein condensates in a one-dimensional optical lattice is modelled within the tight-binding approximation. Two coupled discrete nonlinear Schr\"odinger equations describe the interaction of the condensates in two cases of relevance: a mixture of two ytterbium isotopes and a mixture of $^{87}$Rb and $^{41}$K. Depending on their initial separation, interaction between static breathers of different species can lead to the formation of symbiotic structures and transform one of the breathers from a static into a travelling one. Collisions between travelling and static discrete breathers composed of different species are separated in four distinct regimes ranging from totally elastic when the interspecies interaction is highly attractive to mutual destruction when the interaction is sufficiently large and repulsive. We provide an explanation of the collision features in terms of the interspecies coupling and the negative effective mass of the discrete breathers.