Abstract

Dilute-gas Bose-Einstein condensates are a prime tool for the study of dispersive hydrodynamics. Capitalizing on the diverse set of tools available to atomic physics, numerous spectacular results have been experimentally obtained by various groups, including the realization of topological features, shocks, turbulence, caustics, and more. In this talk, we will present new results from the frontier of densely packed soliton trains. We present an experimental technique allowing us to create tunable phase wound arrays in a two-component mixture, ranging from broad features to tightly packed trains. These phase windings exhibit rich mean field dynamics, including shape oscillations and soliton formation, which we characterize through direct imaging as well as through Fourier methods. Our results are corroborated by 3D, time-dependent simulations. This work demonstrates a practical path towards the investigation of densely packed solitons.  Understanding the dynamics of these structured quantum fluids has applications in benchmarking theoretical models for quantum hydrodynamics and condensed matter physics simulations, and can provide an alternative viewpoint on the physics of supersolids. We gratefully acknowledge funding from NSF under grant number PHY -2207588.