Rabi oscillations of matter wave solitons in optical lattices

Inter-band Rabi oscillations of gap soliton matter waves induced by time dependent periodic forces in combined linear and nonlinear optical lattices are for the first time 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 life-time.