States without linear counterpart in Bose-Einstein condensates

We show the existence of stationary solutions of a 1-D Gross-Pitaevskii equation in presence of a multi-well external potential that do not reduce to any of the eigenfunctions of the associated Schroedinger problem. These solutions, which in the limit of strong nonlinearity have the form of chains of dark or bright solitons located near the extrema of the potential, represent macroscopically excited states of a Bose-Einstein condensate and are in principle experimentally observable.