Spin-orbit-coupled bosons can exhibit rich equilibrium phases at low temperature and in the presence of particle-particle interactions. In the case with a 1D synthetic spin-orbit interaction, it has been observed that the ground state of a Bose gas can be a normal phase, stripe phase, or magnetized phase in different parameter regimes. The magnetized states are doubly degenerate and consist of a many-particle two-state system. In this work, we investigate the nonequilibrium quantum dynamics by switching on a simple one-dimensional optical lattice potential as external perturbation to induce resonant couplings between the magnetized phases, and predict a quantum spin dynamics which cannot be obtained in the single-particle systems. In particular, due to particle-particle interactions, the transition of the Bose condensate from one magnetized phase to the other is forbidden when the external perturbation strength is less than a critical value, and a full transition can occur only when the perturbation exceeds such critical strength. This phenomenon manifests itself a dynamical phase transition, with the order parameter defined by the time-averaged magnetization over an oscillation period, and the critical point behavior being exactly solvable. The thermal fluctuations are also considered in detail. From numerical simulations and exact analytic studies we show that the predicted many-body effects can be well observed with the current experiments.
Spin-orbit-coupled bosons can exhibit rich equilibrium phases at low temperature and in the presence of particle-particle interactions. In the case with a 1D synthetic spin-orbit interaction, it has been observed that the ground state of a Bose gas can be a normal phase, stripe phase, or magnetized phase in different parameter regimes. The magnetized states are doubly degenerate and consist of a many-particle two-state system. In this work, we investigate the nonequilibrium quantum dynamics by switching on a simple one-dimensional optical lattice potential as external perturbation to induce resonant couplings between the magnetized phases, and predict a quantum spin dynamics which cannot be obtained in the single-particle systems. In particular, due to particle-particle interactions, the transition of the Bose condensate from one magnetized phase to the other is forbidden when the external perturbation strength is less than a critical value, and a full transition can occur only when the perturbation exceeds such critical strength. This phenomenon manifests itself a dynamical phase transition, with the order parameter defined by the time-averaged magnetization over an oscillation period, and the critical point behavior being exactly solvable. The thermal fluctuations are also considered in detail. From numerical simulations and exact analytic studies we show that the predicted many-body effects can be well observed with the current experiments.
In this thesis, we consider the Bose-Einstein condensation of ideal Bose gas in prsence of
pseudo spin-orbit coupling. We take equal Rashba and Dresselhaus spin orbit coupling
which give rise to degenerate minima at �nite momenta in the ground state eigenvalue
and hence form an unconvensional condensate. In this work, we �rst considered the
quantum mechanics of this system to calculate energy eigenvalues and the wave function
both of which posses a signature of spin orbit coupling. Then we consider the
statistical mechanical properties of these systems. In the case of homogeneous system,
we �rst calculate the density of states and then the critical temperature of the system.
The critical temperature shows a non-analytic point at a particular value of a certain
parameter the Raman Coupling which is also known as the point of quantum phase transition
in the case of interacting system. Critical temperature at point shows a cusp like
structure and drops down to a minimum value at the same point. The critical temperature
can be approximated analytically in two di�erent Raman coupling regime before
and beyond the critical point from the density of state description. This description
can be found by approximating the density of states with that of a free particle with
reduced mass in the direction in which the spin orbit coupling takes place. We then
consider the magnetization of the system an its variance with the change in the Raman
coupling. The magnetization of the condensate vanishes at the same critical point. We
next consider the spin orbit coupled Bose gas in a harmonic con�nement. The critical
temeperature for this case will show a dip in around the same value of the critical point
as in the previous case. But, in this case the drop in the critical temeperature is less
sharp and smoothened due to the presense of an harmonic trap. Next we consider the
natural extension of the spin bosons to a large spin and we show that it can be exactly
mapped to the Dicke model. We can also estimate the critical temperature from this
description in a similar fashion.
The dissertation explores the effects of synthetic spin-orbit coupling on the behaviour of quantum gases in several different contexts. We first study realistic methods to create vortices in spin-orbit-coupled (SOC) Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC). We propose two different methods to induce thermodynamically stable static vortex configurations: (1) to rotate both the Raman lasers and the anisotropic trap; and (2) to impose a synthetic Abelian field on top of synthetic spin-orbit interactions. We solve the Gross-Pitaevskii equation for several experimentally relevant regimes and find new interesting effects such as spatial separation of left- and right-moving spin-orbit-coupled condensates, and the appearance of unusual vortex arrangements. Next we consider cold atoms in an optical lattice with synthetic SOC in the Mott-insulator regime. We calculate the parameters of the corresponding tight-binding model and derive the low-energy spin Hamiltonian which is a combination of Heisenberg model, quantum compass model and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. We find that the Hamiltonian supports a rich classical phase diagram with collinear, spiral and vortex phases. Next we study the time evolution of the magnetization in a Rashba spin-orbit-coupled Fermi gas, starting from a fully-polarized initial state. We model the dynamics using a Boltzmann equation, which we solve in the Hartree-Fock approximation. The resulting non-linear system of equations gives rise to three distinct dynamical regimes controlled by the ratio of interaction and spin-orbit-coupling strength λ: for small λ, the magnetization decays to zero. For intermediate λ, it displays undamped oscillations about zero and for large λ, a partially magnetized state is dynamically stabilized. Motivated by an interesting stripe phase which appears in BEC with SOC [Li et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 225301 (2011)], we study the finite-temperature phase diagram of a pseudospin-1/2 Bose gas with contact interactions. We show that strong inter-spin interactions can lead to the appearance of magnetically ordered phases at temperatures above the superfluid transition. For the case of inter-spin attraction, we also discuss the possibility of a bosonic analogue of the Cooper-paired phase, however this state is not energetically favourable. We extend our calculations to a spin-orbit-coupled Bose gas to investigate the possibility of stripe ordering in the normal phase. However, within our approximations, we do not find an instability towards stripe formation. Finally, we consider a two-dimensional Bose gas at zero temperature with an underlying quartic single-particle dispersion in one spatial direction. This Hamiltonian can be realized using the NIST scheme of spin-orbit coupling [Y.-J. Lin, K. Jimenez-Garcia, and I. B. Spielman, Nature 471, 83 (2011)], or using the shaken lattice scheme of Parker et al. [C. V. Parker, L.-C. Ha and C. Chin, Nature Physics 9, 769 (2013)]. By numerically comparing energies of various trial wave-functions, we show that, at low densities, the ground state is strongly correlated, in contrast to a typical mean-field BEC. The trial wave-function with the lowest energy is of Jastrow-type and it describes a state with finite, but strongly reduced, condensate fraction.
We investigate the quantum phase transitions of a two-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model in the presence of a Rashba spin-orbit coupling with and without thermal fluctuations. The interplay of single-particle hopping, strength of spin-orbit coupling, and interspin interaction leads to superfluid phases with distinct properties. With interspin interactions weaker than intraspin interactions, the spin-orbit coupling induces two finite-momentum superfluid phases. One of them is a phase-twisted superfluid that exists at low hopping strengths and reduces the domain of insulating phases. At comparatively higher hopping strengths, there is a transition from the phase-twisted to a finite-momentum stripe superfluid. With interspin interactions stronger than the intraspin interactions, the system exhibits a phase-twisted to ferromagnetic phase transition. At finite temperatures, the thermal fluctuations destroy the phase-twisted superfluidity and lead to a wide region of normal-fluid states. These findings can be observed in recent quantum gas experiments with spin-orbit coupling in optical lattices.
A weakly interacting, spin-orbit coupled, two-component, ultracold Bose gas bound to a Bravais lattice is studied. Motivated by recent experimental advances in the field of synthetically spin-orbit coupled, ultracold, neutral atomic gases showing Bose-Einstein condensation, an analytic framework with which to describe such systems in the superfluid regime is presented. This is applied to a Rashba spin-orbit-coupled Bose gas in a two-dimensional optical lattice. The exotic nature of Bose-Einstein condensation in the presence of spin-orbit coupling is an interesting study by itself. Additionally, when the optical lattice is introduced, the system provides a highly controllable experimental testing ground for numerous condensed matter physics phenomena. Five phases of the system are considered, and their excitation spectra, critical superfluid velocities and free energies are found. In obtaining the free energy, the effects of terms in the Hamiltonian that are linear in excitation operators are included, and such terms have not been studied previously in this context. Minimization of the free energy at zero temperature is used to confirm the phase diagrams reported in the literature, where it has usually been obtained by neglecting the effect of excitations. The plane and stripe wave phases in the phase diagram are bosonic analogues of Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov states in superconductors involving nonzero condensate momenta.
We analytically and numerically discuss the dynamics of two pseudospin components Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) with spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in deep optical lattices. Rich localized phenomena, such as breathers, solitons, self-trapping, and diffusion, are revealed and strongly depend on the strength of the atomic interaction, SOC, Raman detuning, and the spin polarization (i.e., the initial population difference of atoms between the two pseudospin components of BECs). The critical conditions for the transition of localized states are derived analytically. Based on the critical conditions, the detailed dynamical phase diagram describing the different dynamical regimes is derived. When the Raman detuning satisfies a critical condition, localized states with a fixed initial spin polarization can be observed. When the critical condition is not satisfied, we use two quenching methods, i.e., suddenly and linearly quenching Raman detuning from the soliton or breather state, to discuss the spin dynamics, phase transition, and wave packet dynamics by numerical simulation. The sudden quenching results in a damped oscillation of spin polarization and transforms the system to a new polarized state. Interestingly, the linear quenching of Raman detuning induces a controllable phase transition from an unpolarized phase to an expected polarized phase, while the soliton or breather dynamics is maintained.
The study of quantum degenerate gases has many applications in topics such as condensed matter dynamics, precision measurements and quantum phase transitions. We built an apparatus to create 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) and generated, via optical and magnetic interactions, novel quantum systems in which we studied the contained phase transitions. For our first experiment we quenched multi-spin component BECs from a miscible to dynamically unstable immiscible state. The transition rapidly drives any spin fluctuations with a coherent growth process driving the formation of numerous spin polarized domains. At much longer times these domains coarsen as the system approaches equilibrium. For our second experiment we explored the magnetic phases present in a spin-1 spin-orbit coupled BEC and the contained quantum phase transitions. We observed ferromagnetic and unpolarized phases which are stabilized by the spin-orbit coupling’s explicit locking between spin and motion. These two phases are separated by a critical curve containing both first-order and second-order transitions joined at a critical point. The narrow first-order transition gives rise to long-lived metastable states. For our third experiment we prepared independent BECs in a double-well potential, with an artificial magnetic field between the BECs. We transitioned to a single BEC by lowering the barrier while expanding the region of artificial field to cover the resulting single BEC. We compared the vortex distribution nucleated via conventional dynamics to those produced by our procedure, showing our dynamical process populates vortices much more rapidly and in larger number than conventional nucleation.