Bell solitons in ultra-cold atomic Fermi gas

We demonstrate the existence of supersonic bell solitons in the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer-Bose-Einstein condensate crossover regime. Starting from the extended Thomas-Fermi density functional theory of superfluid order parameter, a density transformation is used to map the hydrodynamic mean field equation to a Lienard-type equation. As a result, bell solitons are obtained as exact solutions, which is further verified by the numerical solution of the dynamical equation. The stability of the soliton is established and its behaviour in the entire crossover domain is obtained. It is found that, akin to the case of vortices, bell solitons yield highest contrast in the BEC regime. © 2013 IOP Publishing Ltd.