Abstract
Modulational instability (MI) is a fundamental phenomenon in the study of nonlinear dynamics, spanning diverse areas such as shallow water waves, optics, and ultracold atomic gases. In particular, the nonlinear stage of MI has recently been a topic of intense exploration and has been shown to manifest, in many cases, in the generation of dispersive shock waves (DSWs). In this Letter, we experimentally probe the MI dynamics in an immiscible two-component ultracold atomic gas with exclusively repulsive interactions, catalyzed by a hard-wall-like boundary produced by a repulsive optical barrier. We analytically describe the expansion rate of the DSWs in this system, generalized to arbitrary intercomponent interaction strengths and species ratios. We observe excellent agreement among the analytical results, an effective 1D numerical model, full 3D numerical simulations, and experimental data. Additionally, we extend this scenario to the interaction between two counterpropagating DSWs, which leads to the production of Peregrine soliton structures. These results further demonstrate the versatility of atomic platforms toward the controlled realization of DSWs and rogue waves.
Recommended Citation
S. Mossman et al., "Nonlinear Stage of Modulational Instability in Repulsive Two-Component Bose-Einstein Condensates," Physical Review Letters, vol. 135, no. 11, p. 113401, American Physical Society, Sep 2025.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1103/6jsr-f8q1
Department(s)
Physics
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
1079-7114
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Citation
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2025 American Physical Society, All rights reserved.
Publication Date
12 Sep 2025
PubMed ID
41004759
