Interference of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a hard-wall trap: From the nonlinear Talbot effect to the formation of vorticity - art. no. 043613

We theoretically study the coherent expansion of a Bose-Einstein condensate in the presence of a confining impenetrable hard-wall potential. The nonli near dynamics of the macroscopically coherent matter held results in rich a nd complex spatiotemporal self-interference patterns demonstrating a nonlin ear Talbot effect, and the formation of vorticity and solitonlike structure s.