Solitary waves under the competition of linear and nonlinear periodic potentials

In this paper, we study the competition of the linear and nonlinear lattices and its effects on the stability and dynamics of bright solitary waves. We consider both lattices in a perturbative framework, whereby the technique of Hamiltonian perturbation theory can be used to obtain information about the existence of solutions, and the same approach, as well as eigenvalue count considerations, can be used to obtain detailed conditions about their linear stability. We find that the analytical results are in very good agreement with our numerical findings and can also be used to predict features of the dynamical evolution of such solutions. A particularly interesting result of these considerations is the existence of a tunable cancellation effect between the linear and nonlinear lattices that allows for increased mobility of the solitary wave. PACS numbers: 03.75.Lm, 03.75.−b (Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version) 1