In the study of trapped two-component Bose gases, a widely used dynamical protocol is to start from the ground state of a one-component condensate and then switch half the atoms into another hyperfine state. The slightly different intra-component and inter-component interactions can then lead to highly non-trivial dynamics, especially in the density mismatch between the two components, commonly referred to as 'spin' density. We study and classify the possible subsequent dynamics, over a wide variety of parameters spanned by the trap strength and by the inter- to intra-component interaction ratio. A stability analysis suited to the trapped situation provides us with a framework to explain the various types of dynamics in different regimes.
In the study of trapped two-component Bose gases, a widely used dynamical protocol is to start from the ground state of a one-component condensate and then switch half the atoms into another hyperfine state. The slightly different intra-component and inter-component interactions can then lead to highly non-trivial dynamics, especially in the density mismatch between the two components, commonly referred to as 'spin' density. We study and classify the possible subsequent dynamics, over a wide variety of parameters spanned by the trap strength and by the inter- to intra-component interaction ratio. A stability analysis suited to the trapped situation provides us with a framework to explain the various types of dynamics in different regimes.
The miscibility of two interacting quantum systems is an important testing ground for the understanding of complex quantum systems. Two-component Bose-Einstein condensates enable the investigation of this scenario in a particularly well controlled setting. In a homogeneous system, the transition between mixed and separated phases is fully characterized by a miscibility parameter based on the ratio of intra- to interspecies interaction strengths. Here we show, however, that this parameter is no longer the optimal one for trapped gases, for which the location of the phase boundary depends critically on atom numbers. We demonstrate how monitoring of damping rates and frequencies of dipole oscillations enables the experimental mapping of the phase diagram by numerical implementation of a fully self-consistent finite-temperature kinetic theory for binary condensates. The change in damping rate is explained in terms of surface oscillation in the immiscible regime, and counterflow instability in the miscible regime, with collisions becoming only important in the long time evolution.
In this Thesis is presented a study on dynamical properties of mixtures of ultraold Bose gases. The behaviour of this system in different regimes is analysed: with and without coherent coupling between the two components, in homogeneous and harmonic shaped trapping potentials and in different dimensions and geometries. Most of the results presented here have been obtained by means of numerical solutions of coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations and have been compared with theoretical predictions (and sometimes experiments), describing the same phenomena. In particualr the stability of persistent currents in a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate in a toroidal trap is studied in both the miscible and the immiscible regime. In the miscible regime we show that superflow decay is related to linear instabilities of the spin-density Bogoliubov mode. We find a region of partial stability, where the flow is stable in the majority component while it decays in the minority component. We also characterize the dynamical instability appearing for a large relative velocity between the two components. In the immiscible regime the stability criterion is modified and depends on the specific density distribution of the two components. The effect of a coherent coupling between the two components is also discussed. A study on the collective modes of the minority component of a highly unbalanced Bose-Bose mixture is also presented. In the immiscible case we find that the ground state can be a two-domain walls soliton. Although the mode frequencies are continuous at the transition, their behaviour is very different with respect to the miscible case. The dynamical behaviour of the solitonic structure and the frequency dependence on the inter- and intra-species interaction is numerically studied using coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations. The results of the study on the static and the dynamic response of coherently coupled two component Bose-Einstein condensates due to a spin-dipole perturbation is also sown. The static dipole susceptibility is determined and is shown to be a key quantity to identify the second order ferromagnetic transition occurring at large inter-species interactions. The dynamics, which is obtained by quenching the spin-dipole perturbation, is very much affected by the system being paramagnetic or ferromagnetic and by the correlation between the motional and the internal degrees of freedom. In the paramagnetic phase the gas exhibits well defined out-of-phase dipole oscillations, whose frequency can be related to the susceptibility of the system using a sum rule approach. In particular in the interaction SU (2) symmetric case, when all the two-body interactions are the same, the external dipole oscillation coincides with the internal Rabi flipping frequency. In the ferromagnetic case, where linear response theory is not applicable, the system shows highly non-linear dynamics. In particular we observe phenomena related to ground state selection: the gas, initially trapped in a domain wall configuration, reaches a final state corresponding to the magnetic ground state plus small density ripples. Interestingly, the time during which the gas is unable to escape from its initial configuration is found to be proportional to the square root of the wall surface \ntension.
We investigate modulational instability(MI) of a coupled two-component Bose–Einstein condensates in a rotating ring trap. The excitation spectrum and the MI condition of the system are presented analytically. We find that the coupling between the two components strongly modifies the MI condition, and the MI condition is phase-dependent.Furthermore, we discuss the effect of MI on both density excitation and spin excitation. If the inter- and intra-component interaction strengths are all equal, the MI causes density excitation but not spin excitation, and if the inter- and intracomponent interaction strengths are different, the MI causes both density excitation and spin excitation. Our results provide a promising approach for controlling the stability and excitation of a rotating two-component Bose–Einstein condensates by modulating its coupling strength and interaction strength.
We theoretically investigate the dynamics of modulation instability (MI) in two-dimensional spin–orbit coupled Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) with Rabi coupling. The analysis is performed for equal densities of pseudo-spin components. Different combination of the signs of intra- and intercomponent interaction strengths are considered, with a particular emphasis on repulsive interactions. We observe that the unstable modulation builds from originally miscible condensates, depending on the combination of the signs of the intra- and intercomponent interaction strengths. The repulsive intra- and intercomponent interactions admit instability and the MI immiscibility condition is no longer significant. The influence of interaction parameters such as spin–orbit and Rabi coupling on MI are also investigated. The spin–orbit coupling (SOC) inevitably contributes to instability regardless of the nature of the interaction. In the case of attractive interaction, SOC manifests in enhancing the MI. Thus, a comprehensive study of MI in two-dimensional spin–orbit coupled BECs of pseudo-spin components is presented.
This work concerns a theoretical study of a two-component ultra-cold bosonic gas of polarised magnetic dipolar atoms. The atoms interact by short-ranged contact interactions and long-ranged dipole-dipole interactions. The two components can correspond to two different spin-states of a single atomic species or two different atomic species, as realised in recent experiments. Here, we develop a general theory for the ground states and excitations of a two-component dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate. The ground states are described by dipolar Gross-Pitaevskii equations and Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations describe the excitations. We apply these theories to systems in 3D harmonic traps and a uniform planar potential. Specialised numerical methods are developed to provide accurate solutions of these equations, and to deal with the singular dipole-dipole interaction kernel. These methods involve spectral representations based on plane waves and Bessel functions. We also discuss the methods we used for obtaining ground state solutions of the nonlinear Gross-Pitaevskii energy functional. Dipole-dipole interactions can favour spatial structure, as demonstrated in the recent observation of supersolid states of matter in a single-component dipolar gas. In the two-component system these interactions can also favour a ground state with a periodic order in the pseudo-spin density. A two-component system can be either miscible (components overlap) or immiscible (components are separated). Our focus here is in the spin-stripe state, which occurs in a flattened trap geometry and involves an immiscible stripe pattern along one of the weakly trapped or untrapped directions. We examine the dynamical stability conditions of the uniform miscible state in planar confinement, and produce an associated stability phase diagram. We identify the various instabilities and analytical criteria for estimating these. We focus on the occurrence of, and conditions that favour, density-roton or spin-roton excitations, anticipating that the softening of these excitations will lead to structured ground states. To characterize these excitations we introduce density and spin dynamical structure factors, which can be measured in experiments using Bragg spectroscopy. Building on the stability phase diagram we compute ground states where the immiscible state is unstable to spin-rotons, finding triangular and stripe immiscible states with a length scale set by the confinement and interactions. We find that the transition to the stripe state is continuous and coincides with the spin-roton softening in the uniform miscible state. We study the excitations of the spin stripe state which exhibits three gapless excitation branches arising from the spontaneous broken symmetries. We identify a balanced parameter regime, where the excitations exhibit a nonsymmorphic symmetry (a symmetry is nonsymmorphic when it is a combination of point-group operations with nonprimitive lattice translations, i.e. not an integer multiple of lattice constants), which is revealed in the density and spin dynamical structure factors. We also consider the dynamics of the system following a quench from the uniform to immiscible stripe states. In the early time dynamics, a spin-stripe state is formed in a such way that the stripe order only extends over small domains. In subsequent dynamics, these domain sizes grow as the system phase-orders towards its equilibrium state. We identify the relevant topological defects such as disclinations, dislocations and grain boundaries. Using ensembles of large scale simulations we show that dynamical scaling holds for the growth of order.
We study the collision dynamics of two Bose-Einstein condensates with their dynamical wave functions modeled by a set of coupled, time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equations. Beginning with an effective one-dimensional system, we identify regimes characterized by the relationship between inter- and intra-atomic interactions and the initial configuration of the system, akin to the equilibrium phase diagram of two interacting Bose condensates. We consider a dynamical setup in which two wave packets are initially at rest with a small separation about the center of an asymmetric harmonic trap. Upon release, we observe a rapid approach to dynamical equilibrium in the limits of very large and very small inter-particle repulsion, characterized by periodic transmission or reflection of the condensates as distinguishable units, whereas the intermediate, critical regime is characterized by extended transient dynamics, density fracturing, and dynamical mixing. We therefore have reason to believe that non-trivial behavior may exist during the collisions of Bose-Einstein condensates as a result of their non-linear interactions, and these effects may be observable in a suitable laboratory environment.