Stability limits for two-dimensional matter-wave solitons in a time-modulated quasi-one-dimensional optical lattice

In a basic physical model where two-dimensional (2D) matter-wave solitons may be stable, namely, the Gross-Pitaevskii equation with the self-attractive nonlinearity and quasi-one-dimensional (1D) optical-lattice (OL) potential, we test robustness of the solitons against periodic time modulation of the OL strength. Stability diagrams for the 2D solitons are presented in the plane of the modulation depth and frequency. Basic features of the diagrams are explained with the help of the variational approximation for the stationary counterpart of the model. In the Bose-Einstein condensate of 7Li atoms, the stable 2D solitons may contain the number of atoms in the range of 104-105, relevant values of the OL strength and modulation frequency being, respectively < or approx. 5 recoil energies and < or approx. 10 kHZ. Head-on collisions between stable 2D solitons moving in the unconfined direction are studied in detail too, for velocities up to ∼5 cm/s. A border between quasi-elastic collisions and merger of the solitons into a single localized state is identified. In some cases, the soliton produced by the merger is stable against collapse, which was not observed before in the static OL potential either