Spatial structure of a collisionally inhomogeneous Bose-Einstein condensate

The spatial structure of a collisionally inhomogeneous Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in an optical lattice is studied. A spatially dependent current with an explicit analytic expression is found in the case with a spatially dependent BEC phase. The oscillating amplitude of the current can be adjusted by a Feshbach resonance, and the intensity of the current depends heavily on the initial and boundary conditions. Increasing the oscillating amplitude of the current can force the system to pass from a single-periodic spatial structure into a very complex state. But in the case with a constant phase, the spatially dependent current disappears and the Melnikov chaotic criterion is obtained via a perturbative analysis in the presence of a weak optical lattice potential. Numerical simulations show that a strong optical lattice potential can lead BEC atoms to a state with a chaotic spatial distribution via a quasiperiodic route.