Two-component Bose-Einstein condensates in periodic potentials

Coupled nonlinear Schrodinger (CNLS) equations with an external elliptic function potential model with high accuracy a quasi-one-dimensional interacting two-component Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) trapped in a standing wave generated by a few laser beams. The construction of stationary solutions of the two-component CNLS equation with a periodic potential is detailed and their stability properties are studied by direct numerical simulations. Some of these solutions allow reduction to the Manakov system. From a physical point of view the trivial phase solutions can be interpreted as exact Bloch states at the edge of the Brillouin zone. Some of them are stable while others are found to be unstable against weak modulations of long wavelength. By numerical simulations it is shown that the modulationally unstable solutions lead to the formation of localized ground states of the coupled BEC system.