Band structure and stability of Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices with two- and three-atom interactions

Abstract

Energy band structure and stability of Bose-Einstein condensate with both two- and three-body interactions in one-dimensional periodic optical lattices are discussed. It is demonstrated that the lowest energy band can show a loop structure at the boundary of the first Brillouin zone only when the number of atoms is larger than a critical value. When the loop structure is excited, an analytical expression of the loop width is obtained. The energetical and dynamical stabilities of the system are determined by considering the behavior of the Gross-Pitaevskii energy functional when the condensate wave function diverge away from a stationary state upon small perturbation, and its dependence on the number of atoms, the magnitude of the periodic potential, especially, the strength of the three-body force are studied. In addition, a criteria of the stability for excitations with long wavelengths is given by applying the hydrodynamic approach. The influence of the three-body interaction on the band properties and the stabilities are discussed in detail. It is shown that the critical density for developing the loop structure, the loop width, and the instability criteria are modified dramatically by the three-body interaction.