We theoretically study a three-dimensional weakly interacting Bose gas with Raman-induced spin-orbit coupling at finite temperature. By employing a generalized Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov theory with Popov approximation, we determine a complete finite-temperature phase diagram of three exotic condensation phases (i.e., the stripe, plane-wave, and zero-momentum phases), against both quantum and thermal fluctuations. We find that the plane-wave phase is significantly broadened by thermal fluctuations. The phonon mode and sound velocity at the transition from the plane-wave phase to the zero-momentum phase are thoughtfully analyzed. At zero temperature, we find that quantum fluctuations open an unexpected gap in sound velocity at the phase transition, in stark contrast to the previous theoretical prediction of a vanishing sound velocity. At finite temperature, thermal fluctuations continue to significantly enlarge the gap, and simultaneously shift the critical minimum. For a Bose gas of
87Rb atoms at the typical experimental temperature,
T=0.3T0, where
T0 is the critical temperature of an ideal Bose gas without spin-orbit coupling, our results of gap opening and critical minimum shifting in the sound velocity are qualitatively consistent with the recent experimental observation [Ji et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 105301 (2015)].
We consider the spin-orbit-coupled Bose gas with repulsive mean-field interparticle interactions. We analyze the phase diagram of the system varying the temperature
T>0, the chemical potentials, and interparticle and spin-orbit interaction couplings. Our results indicate that, for Rashba- and Weyl-type spin-orbit couplings, condensates featuring an ordering wave vector $\stackrel{P\vec}{Q}\ensuremath{\ne}\stackrel{P\vec}{0}$ are fragile with respect to thermal fluctuations and at
T>0 the only stable thermodynamic phases involving the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) are those of uniform type with $\stackrel{P\vec}{Q}=\stackrel{P\vec}{0}$. On the other hand, the presence of the spin-orbit coupling stabilizes the $\stackrel{P\vec}{Q}=\stackrel{P\vec}{0}$ BEC state at any dimensionality
d>1 and modifies either the order or the universality class of the corresponding phase transition. We emphasize the singular nature of the limit of vanishing spin-orbit interaction coupling
v, sizable shifts of the phase boundaries upon varying
v, and the role of the relative magnitudes of the interparticle interaction couplings for the character of the condensation transition.
Ground-state phase diagram of two-component Bose gases with Rashba spin-orbit coupling is determined via a variational approach. A phase in which the fully polarized condensate occupies zero momentum is identified. This zero-momentum phase competes with the spin density wave phase when interspecies interaction is stronger than intraspecies interaction, and the former one is always the ground state for weak spin-orbit coupling. When the energies of these two phases are close, there is a phase separation between them. At finite temperature, such a zero-momentum condensation can be induced by a ferromagnetic phase transition in normal state. The spontaneous spin polarization removes the degeneracy of quasiparticles' energy minima, and consequently the modified density of state accommodates a Bose condensation to appear below a critical temperature.