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arXiv:1304.4340 · Physical Review A

Gauge-spin-space rotation-invariant vortices in spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates

Zhi-Fang Xu, Shingo Kobayashi, Masahito Ueda

Published Jul 15, 2013• 18 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We revisit ground states of spinor Bose-Einstein condensates with a Rashba spin-orbit coupling, and find that various types of vortices show up without rotation as a direct consequence of spontaneous symmetry breaking into a combined gauge, spin, and space rotation symmetry. The combined symmetry also determines the vortex-core spin state at the rotating center. For the continuous combined symmetry, the spin rotates by $2\ensuremath{\pi}$ around the rotating axis, whereas for the discrete combined symmetry, we further need $2F$ quantum numbers to determine how much the spin rotates for the spin-$F$ system. For lattice phases we find that in the ground state the topological charge for each unit cell vanishes. However, we find two types of highly symmetric lattices with nontrivial topological charges for the spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ system based on the symmetry classification, and show that they are Skyrmion crystals.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.88.013621

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We study the vortex-lattice formation in a rotating Rashba spin-orbit (SO) coupled quasi-two-dimensional (quasi-2D) hyper-fine spin-1 spinor Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in the x-y plane using a numerical solution of the underlying mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii equation. In this case, the non-rotating Rashba SO-coupled spinor BEC can have topological excitation in the form of vortices of different angular momenta in the three components, e.g. the (0, +1, +2)- and (-1, 0, +1)-type states in ferromagnetic and anti-ferromagnetic spinor BEC: the numbers in the parenthesis denote the intrinsic angular momentum of the vortex states of the three components with the negative sign denoting an anti-vortex. The presence of these states with intrinsic vorticity breaks the symmetry between rotation with vorticity along the z and -z axes and thus generates a rich variety of vortex-lattice and anti-vortex-lattice states in a rotating quasi-2D spin-1 spinor ferromagnetic and anti-ferromagnetic BEC, not possible in a scalar BEC. For weak SO coupling, we find two types of symmetries of these states - hexagonal and 'square'. The hexagonal (square) symmetry state has vortices arranged in closed concentric orbits with a maximum of 6, 12, 18… (8, 12, 16…) vortices in successive orbits. Of these two symmetries, the square vortex-lattice state is found to have the smaller energy.
We develop a symmetry classification scheme to find ground states of pseudo-spin-12\frac{1}{2}21​, spin-1, and spin-2 spin-orbit-coupled spinor Bose-Einstein condensates and show that as the SO(2) symmetry of simultaneous spin and space rotations is broken into discrete cyclic groups, various types of lattice structures emerge in the absence of a lattice potential. Examples include two different kagome lattices for pseudo-spin-12\frac{1}{2}21​ condensates and a nematic vortex lattice in which uniaxial and biaxial spin textures align alternatively for spin-2 condensates. For the pseudo-spin-12\frac{1}{2}21​ system, although mean-field states always break time-reversal symmetry, there exists a time-reversal invariant many-body ground state, which is fragmented and expected to be observed in a microcondensate.
Realization of spinor Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical trap has made it possible to create a variety of topological nontrivial structures, due to the vector character of the order parameter. Recently, artificial spin-orbit coupling in the spinor Bose-Einstein condensate, owing to coupling between the spin and the center-of-mass motion of the atom, provides an unprecedented opportunity to search for novel quantum states. As is well known, the potential well in the Bose-Einstein condensate is adjustable. The toroidal trap is an important model potential because of its simplicity and richness in physics. In particular, the spinor Bose-Einstein condensate under the toroidal trap has brought an ideal platform for studying fascinating properties of a superfluid, such as persistent flow and symmetry-breaking localization. For the case of the spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensate, the previous studies of the toroidal trap mainly focused on the two-component or antiferromagnetic case. However, in the presence of a toroidal trap, there remains an open question whether the combined effects of the spin-orbit coupling and rotation can produce previously unknown types of topological excitations in the ferromagnetic Bose-Einstein condensate. In this work, by using quasi two-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equations, we study the ground state structure of spin-orbit coupled rotating ferromagnetic Bose-Einstein condensate in the toroidal trap. We concentrate on the effects of the spin-orbit coupling and the rotation on the ground states. The numerical results show that in the presence of a toroidal trap, the ground state structure is displayed as half-skyrmion chain with circular distribution. Adjusting the strength of spin-orbit coupling not only changes the number of half-skyrmion in the system, but also controls the symmetry of half-skyrmion with circular distribution. As the rotation frequency increases, the system undergoes the transitions from the plane wave to the half-skyrmion chain with circular distribution, and eventually developing the half-skyrmion phase of triangular lattice. Next, we examine the effect of spin-independent interaction on spin-orbit coupled rotating spinor Bose-Einstein condensate. As the spin-independent interaction increases, the topological defects in the condensate increase due to the variation of the local magnetic order. We also discuss the influence of well shape on the ground state structure. These topological structures can be detected via the time-of-flight absorption imaging technique. The spin-orbit coupled spinor Bose-Einstein condensate in the toroidal trap is an important quantum platform, which not only opens up a new avenue for exploring the exotic topological structures, but also is crucial for realizing the transitions among different ground states. This work paves the way for futureexploring the topological defects and the corresponding dynamical stability in quantum system subjected to the toroidal trap.
We examine the combined effects of Rashba spin-orbit (SO) coupling and rotation on trapped spinor Bose-Einstein condensates. The nature of single particle states is thoroughly examined in the Landau level basis and is shown to support the formation of a half-quantum vortex. In the presence of weak s-wave interactions, the ground state at strong SO coupling develops ringlike structures with domains whose number shows step behavior with increasing rotation. For the fast rotation case, the vortex pattern favors a triangular lattice, accompanied by density depletion in the central region and a weakened Skyrmionic character as the SO coupling is enhanced. Giant vortex formation is facilitated when SO coupling and rotation are both strong.
We theoretically investigate vortex-lattice phases of rotating spinor Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC's) with a ferromagnetic spin interaction by numerically solving the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The spinor BEC under slow rotation can sustain a rich variety of exotic vortices due to the multicomponent order parameters, such as Mermin-Ho and Anderson-Toulouse coreless vortices (the two-dimensional Skyrmion and meron) and nonaxisymmetric vortices with shifting vortex cores. Here, we present the spin texture of various vortex-lattice states at higher rotation rates and in the presence of an external magnetic field. In addition, the vortex phase diagram is constructed in the plane of the total magnetization MMM and the external rotation frequency $\ensuremath{\Omega}$ by comparing the free energies of possible vortices. It is shown that the vortex phase diagrams in the $M\text{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\Omega}$ plane may be divided into two categories: (i) the coreless vortex lattice formed by the several types of Mermin-Ho vortices and (ii) the vortex lattice filling in the cores with the pure polar (antiferromagnetic) state. In particular, it is found that the type-(ii) state forms composite lattices of coreless and polar-core vortices. The difference between type (i) and type (ii) results from the existence of the singularity of the spin textures, which may be experimentally confirmed by the spin imaging within polarized light recently proposed by Carusotto and Mueller. We also discuss the stability of triangular and square lattice states for rapidly rotating condensates.
We investigate the combined effects of spin-orbit coupling and rotation on the topological vortical phase transition in F=2F=2F=2 Bose-Einstein condensates. We find that the spin-orbit coupling can precisely manipulate the canonical atom current which is generated in the opposite direction of the gauge atom current and causes both a continuous and a discontinuous canonical angular momentum. We apply the canonical angular momentum and magnetization to reveal the emergence of novel topological excitations, such as the Anderson-Toulouse vortex as well as the vortex--dipole lattice. Especially, strong spin-orbit coupling can induce two perpendicular vortex chains. We also find that both the first-order and the second-order phase transition can be characterized by the canonical angular momentum and the magnetization. Differently from the spin singlet-pairing interaction, the spin-exchange interaction can adjust the canonical angular momentum and control the phase transition well. The topological vortical phase transition in an F=2F=2F=2 cold-atom system is compatible with the current experiment and can be detected by the spin polarization procedure.