Localized breathing solutions for Bose-Einstein condensates in periodic traps

Abstract

We demonstrate the existence of localized oscillatory breathers for quasi-one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates confined in periodic potentials. The breathing behavior corresponds to position-oscillations of individual condensates about the minima of the potential lattice. We deduce the structural stability of the localized oscillations from the construction. The stability is confirmed numerically for perturbations to the initial state of the condensate, to the potential trap, as well as for external noise. We also construct periodic and chaotic extended oscillations for the chain of condensates. All our findings are verified by direct numerical integration of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation in one dimension.