Dipolar interactions support the formation of intersite soliton molecules in a stack of quasi-one-dimensional (quasi-1D) traps. We show that the stability and properties of individual solitons and soliton molecules in such a geometry crucially depend on the interplay between contact and dipolar interactions. In particular, two different quasi-1D soliton regimes are possible: a one-dimensional (1D) soliton characterized by purely repulsive dipole-dipole interactions (DDI) and a three-dimensional (3D) soliton for which a sufficiently large dipole moment renders the DDI attractive. Furthermore, we find that in contrast to the dimers of polar molecules the soliton dimers exhibit a nontrivial behavior of the elementary excitations that stems from the competition between onsite and intersite DDI. Finally, we prove the existence of soliton trimers in a regime where molecular trimers do not occur. We demonstrate that the soliton molecules that we report are well feasible under realistic experimental conditions.

• Received 4 May 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.86.013610