Variational analysis of flat-top solitons in Bose-Einstein condensates

Static and dynamic properties of matter-wave solitons in dense Bose-Einstein condensates, where three-body interactions play a significant role, have been studied by a variational approximation (VA) and numerical simulations. For experimentally relevant parameters, matter-wave solitons may acquire a flat-top shape, which suggests employing a super-Gaussian trial function for VA. Comparison of the soliton profiles, predicted by VA and those found from numerical solution of the governing Gross-Pitaevskii equation shows good agreement, thereby validating the proposed approach.