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arXiv:1610.08919 · Physical Review A

Exotic domain walls in Bose-Einstein condensates with double-well dispersion

Tongtong Liu, Logan W. Clark, Cheng Chin

Published Dec 29, 2016• 2 citations
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Abstract

We study the domain walls which form when Bose condensates acquire a double-well dispersion. Experiments have observed such domain walls in condensates driven across a ${\mathbb{Z}}_{2}$ symmetry-breaking phase transition in a shaken optical lattice. We derive a generic model to describe the dispersion and to compute the wave functions and energies of the domain walls. We find two distinct regimes which demand different physical pictures. In the weak-coupling regime, where interactions are weak compared to the kinetic-energy barrier, ``density-wave domain walls'' form that support an extended density wave and a series of phase steps. These features can be understood as the quantum interference between domains with distinct momenta. In the strong-coupling regime where interaction dominates, the system forms ``phase domain walls'' which have the minimum width allowed by the uncertainty principle and suppressed density modulation. Analytic results for the domain-wall wave functions are obtained in the two regimes. The energy of domain walls behaves similarly to that of topological defects in paradigmatic field theories.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.94.063646

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We study the domain walls which form when Bose condensates acquire a double-well dispersion. Experiments have observed such domain walls in condensates driven across a Z2{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}Z2​ symmetry-breaking phase transition in a shaken optical lattice. We derive a generic model to describe the dispersion and to compute the wave functions and energies of the domain walls. We find two distinct regimes which demand different physical pictures. In the weak-coupling regime, where interactions are weak compared to the kinetic-energy barrier, density-wave domain walls'' form that support an extended density wave and a series of phase steps. These features can be understood as the quantum interference between domains with distinct momenta. In the strong-coupling regime where interaction dominates, the system forms phase domain walls'' which have the minimum width allowed by the uncertainty principle and suppressed density modulation. Analytic results for the domain-wall wave functions are obtained in the two regimes. The energy of domain walls behaves similarly to that of topological defects in paradigmatic field theories.
We consider coherent states of weakly interacting bosons under the conditions of external resonant excitation, with a focus on a two-dimensional polariton fluid driven by a plane electromagnetic wave near the ground state. The coherent driving breaks the U(1) symmetry explicitly, which prevents the occurrence of quantum vortices in a uniform scalar condensate. Surprisingly, a spinor (two-component) system of the same kind admits topological excitations, such as domain walls of relative phase or confined half-vortex molecules, typical of a freely evolving spinor Bose system. Opposite-phase domains arise from the spontaneous breakdown of the spin symmetry (Z2)(\mathbb{Z}_2)(Z2​). Domain walls form with time even when the initial state of the system is uniform or completely disordered; they fall into different topological types distinguished by the total phase variation in the transverse direction. One type of domain walls is similar to ``magnetic'' solitons in Bose-Einstein condensates and exhibits nonzero spin polarization whose sign depends on the direction of motion. Domain walls of the second type, by contrast, behave like monopoles with broken spatiotemporal symmetry and tend to move in certain preferred directions. The interaction of vortices and domain walls results in a long-range ordering of the system.
We show how one can generate domain walls that separate high- and low-density regions with opposite momenta in the ground state of a harmonically trapped Bose-Einstein condensate using a density-dependent gauge potential. Within a Gross-Pitaevskii framework, we elucidate the distinct roles of vector and scalar potentials and how they lead to synthetic electromagnetic fields that are localized at the domain wall. In particular, the kinetic energy cost of a steep density gradient is compensated by an electrostatic field that pushes particles away from a special value of density. We show numerically in one dimension that such a domain wall is more prominent for repulsive contact interactions, and becomes metastable at strong electric fields through a first-order phase transition that ends at a critical point as the field is reduced. We also provide simple variational that reproduce this metastability. Our findings build on recent experimental developments and may be realized with cold atoms in a shaken optical lattice, providing insights into collective phenomena arising from dynamical gauge fields.
We studied the static and dynamic domain-wall solutions of spinor Bose-Einstein condensates trapped in an optical lattice. The single and double domain-wall solutions are constructed analytically. Our results show that the magnetic field and light-induced dipolar interactions play important roles for both the formation of different domain walls and the adjusting of domain-wall width and velocity. Moreover, these interactions can drive the motion of the domain wall in Bose ferromagnet systems similar to the way the external magnetic field or the spin-polarized current drives it in fermion ferromagnets.
We consider a system of two interpenetrating Bose-Einstein condensates of atoms in two different hyperfine spin states. We show that in the presence of a small coupling drive between the two spin levels, there exist domain walls across which the relative phase of the two condensates changes by $2\ensuremath{\pi}.$ We give the physical interpretation of such walls. We show that the wall tension determines the force between certain pairs of vortices at large distances. We also show that the probability of the spontaneous decay of the domain wall is exponentially suppressed, both at finite and at zero temperature, and determine the exponents in the regime of small Rabi frequency. We briefly discuss how such domain walls could be created in future experiments.
We consider a system of two interpenetrating Bose-Einstein condensates of atoms in two different hyperfine spin states. We show that in the presence of a small coupling drive between the two spin levels, there exist domain walls across which the relative phase of the two condensates changes by 2π. We give the physical interpretation of such walls. We show that the wall tension determines the force between certain pairs of vortices at large distances. We also show that the probability of the spontaneous decay of the domain wall is exponentially suppressed, both at finite and at zero temperature, and determine the exponents in the regime of small Rabi frequency. We briefly discuss how such domain walls could be created in future experiments. I.
Reflection and transmission are two behaviors of wave propagating to an interface. The immiscible binary mixtures of Bose–Einstein condensates can form the symmetry-breaking state, in which the domain wall on the center can serve as the interface. In this study, we explore in detail the propagation of a dark soliton interacting with the domain wall in the harmonic trap. We find that the low-energy dark soliton is easy to form the transmission and the high-energy dark soliton trends to reflect from the domain wall. Both reflection and transmission of dark soliton on the domain wall induce the sound radiation. But the sound radiation in the reflection derives from the collective oscillation of condensates, and it in the transmission comes not only from the collective oscillation, but also from the condensate filling in the dark soliton.