The coherent matter waves of a dipolar condensate in deep two-dimensional (2D) tilted and nontilted optical lattices are studied both analytically and numerically. It is shown that, in tilted lattices, by properly designing the sign and the magnitude of the contact interaction and the dipolar interaction, it is possible to control the decoherence of Bloch oscillations. Contrary to the usual short-range interacting Bose system, long-lived Bloch oscillations of the dipolar condensate are achieved when the dipolar interaction, the contact interaction, and the lattice dimension satisfy an analytical condition. Furthermore, we predict that, in untilted lattices, stable coherent 2D moving soliton and breather states of the dipolar condensate exist. This fact is very different from the purely short-range interacting Bose system (where the moving soliton cannot be stabilized in high-dimensional lattices). The dipolar interaction can lead to some novel phenomena that can not appear in short-range interacting BEC system.

• Received 28 January 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.82.013606