  A dark soliton oscillating in an elongated harmonically-confined atomic
Bose-Einstein condensate continuously exchanges energy with the sound field.
Periodic optical `paddles' are employed to controllably enhance the sound
density and transfer energy to the soliton, analogous to parametric driving. In
the absence of damping, the amplitude of the soliton oscillations can be
dramatically reduced, whereas with damping, a driven soliton equilibrates as a
stable dark soliton with lower energy, thereby extending the soliton lifetime
up to the lifetime of the condensate.
