Rabi oscillations of matter-wave solitons in optical lattices

Interband Rabi oscillations of gap-soliton matter waves induced by time-dependent periodic forces in combined linear and nonlinear optical lattices are demonstrated. It is shown that under suitable conditions, these oscillations can become long lived. By switching off the external force at proper time, it is possible to create either pure (stationary macroscopically populated) gap-soliton states or linear combination of two gap solitons with appreciably long lifetime