Dark-dark solitons and modulational instability in miscible two-component Bose-Einstein condensates

Abstract

We investigate the dynamics of two miscible superfluids experiencing fast counterflow in a narrow channel. The superfluids are formed by two distinguishable components of a trapped dilute-gas Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). The onset of counterflow-induced modulational instability throughout the cloud is observed and shown to lead to the proliferation of dark-dark vector solitons. These solitons do not exist in single-component systems, exhibit intriguing beating dynamics, and can experience a transverse instability leading to vortex line structures. Experimental results and multidimensional numerical simulations are presented.