Symmetry breaking in the collisions of double channel BEC solitons

Abstract: We investigate an attractive Bose-Einstein condensate in two coupled one dimensional channels. In this system a stable double channel soliton can be formed. It is symmetric for small interaction parameters and asymmetric for large ones. We study this symmetry breaking phenomenon in detail. Next, we investigate the dynamics of symmetric double channel soliton collisions. For sufficiently strong interactions we observe spontaneous symmetry breaking during the collision. Approximate considerations based on two different methods, Bogoliubov and variational, are used to describe this effect. The results are compatible.