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Science 17 May 2002:
Vol. 296. no. 5571, pp. 1290 - 1293
DOI: 10.1126/science.1071021
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Reports

Formation of a Matter-Wave Bright Soliton

L. Khaykovich,1 F. Schreck,1 G. Ferrari,12 T. Bourdel,1 J. Cubizolles,1 L. D. Carr,1 Y. Castin,1 C. Salomon1*

We report the production of matter-wave solitons in an ultracold lithium-7 gas. The effective interaction between atoms in a Bose-Einstein condensate is tuned with a Feshbach resonance from repulsive to attractive before release in a one-dimensional optical waveguide. Propagation of the soliton without dispersion over a macroscopic distance of 1.1 millimeter is observed. A simple theoretical model explains the stability region of the soliton. These matter-wave solitons open possibilities for future applications in coherent atom optics, atom interferometry, and atom transport.

1 Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France.
2 European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy-Istituto Nazíonale per la Fisica della Materia, Largo E. Fermi 2, Firenze 50125, Italy.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: salomon{at}lkb.ens.fr

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)