Generation and interaction of solitons in Bose-Einstein condensates

Generation, interaction and detection of dark solitons in Bose-Einstein condensates is considered. In particular, we focus on the dynamics resulting from phase imprinting and density engineering. The generation of soliton pairs as well as their interaction is also considered. Finally, motivated by the recent experimental results of Cornish et al. (Phys. Rev Lett. 85, 1795, 2000), we analyze the stability of dark solitons under changes of the scattering length and thereby demonstrate a new way to detect them. Our theoretical and numerical results compare well with the existing experimental ones and provide guidance for future experiments.