Wave chaos in the nonequilibrium dynamics of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation

Abstract

The Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE) plays an important role in the description of Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) at the mean-field level. The GPE belongs to the class of nonlinear Schr\"odinger equations which are known to feature dynamical instability and collapse for attractive nonlinear interactions. We show that the GPE with repulsive nonlinear interactions typical for BECs features chaotic wave dynamics. We find positive Lyapunov exponents for BECs expanding in periodic and aperiodic smooth external potentials, as well as disorder potentials. Our analysis demonstrates that wave chaos characterized by the exponential divergence of nearby initial wave functions is to be distinguished from the notion of nonintegrability of nonlinear wave equations. We discuss the implications of these observations for the limits of applicability of the GPE, the problem of Anderson localization, and the properties of the underlying many-body dynamics.