Diffraction management and sub-diffractive solitons in periodically driven Bose–Einstein condensates

We theoretically investigate the diffraction management in Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) in one- (1D), two- (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) geometries. The management technique is based on the superposition of harmonic lattices’ potentials moving at a common speed but in different directions, leading to a harmonic spatio-temporal modulation of the potential. In this way a reduction in, and eventually the disappearance of usual diffraction and emergence of fourth-order diffraction are achieved. We show sub-diffractive solitons in such a diffraction managed system and demonstrate their stability in 1D, 2D and 3D. In 2D and 3D cases we investigate diffraction management by lattices of different symmetry, and study their influence on the isotropy of solitons.