Modulational instability of matter waves under strong nonlinearity management

We study modulational instability of matter-waves in Bose–Einstein condensates (BEC) under strong temporal nonlinearity-management. Both BEC in an optical lattice and homogeneous BEC are considered in the framework of the Gross–Pitaevskii equation, averaged over rapid time modulations. For a BEC in an optical lattice, it is shown that the loop formed on a dispersion curve undergoes transformation due to the nonlinearity-management. A critical strength for the nonlinearity-management strength is obtained that changes the character of instability of an attractive condensate. MI is shown to occur below (above) the threshold for the positive (negative) effective mass. The enhancement of number of atoms in the nonlinearity-managed gap soliton is revealed.