Classical and Quantum Solitons from Atomic Bose-Einstein Condensates

When a dilute gas of bosonic atoms is cooled to degeneracy it passes through a quantum phase transition to form a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC).  Beyond this point the properties and dynamics of the BEC can frequently be very well described by a nonlinear classical field equation, the so-called Gross-Pitaevskii equation, which is capable of supporting a variety of excitations, including solitons and vortices.  Bright solitons (non-dispersive waves that are robust to collisions) are of particular interest because they have attractive stability properties for potential applications in metrology and interferometry.  I will discuss a number of aspects of the manifestation of bright matter-wave solitons in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates.