Moving gap solitons in periodic potentials

Abstract We address the existence of moving gap solitons (traveling localized solutions) in the Gross–Pitaevskii equation with a small periodic potential. Moving gap solitons are approximated by the explicit solutions of the coupled‐mode system. We show, however, that exponentially decaying traveling solutions of the Gross–Pitaevskii equation do not generally exist in the presence of a periodic potential due to bounded oscillatory tails ahead and behind the moving solitary waves. The oscillatory tails are not accounted in the coupled‐mode formalism and are estimated by using techniques of spatial dynamics and local center‐stable manifold reductions. Existence of bounded traveling solutions of the Gross–Pitaevskii equation with a single bump surrounded by oscillatory tails on a large interval of the spatial scale is proven by using these techniques. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.