Critical numbers of attractive Bose-condensed atoms in asymmetric traps

The recent Bose-Einstein condensation of ultracold atoms with attractive interactions led us to consider the novel possibility to probe the stability of its ground state in arbitrary three-dimensional harmonic traps. We performed a quantitative analysis of the critical number of atoms through a full numerical solution of the mean field Gross-Pitaevskii equation. Characteristic limits are obtained for reductions from three to two and one dimensions, in perfect cylindrical symmetries as well as in deformed ones.