We report on the production of ${}^{39}\mathrm{K}$ matter-wave bright solitons, i.e., one-dimensional matter waves that propagate without dispersion thanks to attractive interactions. The volume of the soliton is studied as a function of the scattering length through three-body losses, revealing peak densities as high as $\sim 5\times {10}^{20}{\mathrm{m}}^{-3}$. Our solitons, close to the collapse threshold, are strongly bound and will find applications in fundamental physics and atom interferometry.

• Received 6 September 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.94.053626