Dark soliton past a finite-size obstacle

We consider the collision of a dark soliton with an obstacle in a quasi-onedimensional Bose condensate. We show that in many respects the soliton behaves as an effective classical particle of mass twice the mass of a bare particle, evolving in an effective potential which is a convolution of the actual potential describing the obstacle. Radiative effects beyond this approximation are also taken into account. The emitted waves are shown to form two counterpropagating wave packets, both moving at the speed of sound. We determine, at leading order, the total amount of radiation emitted during the collision and compute the acceleration of the soliton due to the collisional process. It is found that the radiative process is quenched when the velocity of the soliton reaches the velocity of sound in the system. PACS numbers: 03.75.-b Matter waves 05.60.Gg Quantum transport 42.65.Tg Optical solitons; nonlinear guided waves Unité Mixte de Recherche de l’Université Paris XI et du CNRS (UMR 8626).