We study the phase diagram of a Rashba spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a two-dimensional toroidal trap. In the immiscible regime we find an azimuthally periodic density distribution, with the periodicity highly tunable as a function of the spin-orbit-coupling strength and which favors an odd number of petals in each component. This allows for a wide range of states that can be created. We further show that in the miscible regime, both components possess states with persistent flows with a unit winding number difference between them and with the absolute values of these winding numbers depending on the spin-orbit-coupling strength. All features of the odd-petal and the persistent flow states can be explained using a simple but effective model.
We study the phase diagram of a Rashba spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a two-dimensional toroidal trap. In the immiscible regime we find an azimuthally periodic density distribution, with the periodicity highly tunable as a function of the spin-orbit-coupling strength and which favors an odd number of petals in each component. This allows for a wide range of states that can be created. We further show that in the miscible regime, both components possess states with persistent flows with a unit winding number difference between them and with the absolute values of these winding numbers depending on the spin-orbit-coupling strength. All features of the odd-petal and the persistent flow states can be explained using a simple but effective model.
Spin-orbit coupling has novel spin-flip symmetries, a spin-1 spinor Bose-Einstein condensate owns meaningful interactions, and a toroidal trap is topologically nontrivial. We incorporate the three together and study the ground-state phase diagram in a Rashba spin-orbit-coupled spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate with a toroidal trap. The spin-flip symmetries give rise to two different interesting phases: persistent flows with a unit phase winding difference between three components, and necklace states with even petal number. The existing parameter regimes and properties of these phases are characterized by two-dimensional numerical calculations and an azimuthal analytical one-dimensional model.
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 regimes. 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.
Abstract The ground-state properties of a spin–orbit-coupled spin-1 Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) in a toroidal trap are investigated. The exotic ground states, such as the necklace state, the persistent flow and even the vortex state, for the three components in the system are induced by adjustable external parameters. It is found that the petal number of the necklace states is increased with increasing the intensity of the spin–orbit coupling (SOC), and the anisotropy of the SOC can be used to control the structure of the ground states. The rotation of the condensate induced by the external field makes the densities of the three components asymmetric and tends to transform the necklace state to the persistent flow. The radius of the toroidal potential is another degree of freedom for manipulating the necklace state. In addition, the transition between the necklace state and the vortex, intermediated by the persistent flow, can be controlled by the ratio of the density-density and spin-exchange interactions. All of above results enrich our knowledge about the properties of the ground states of spin-1 BEC trapped in the toroidal trap.
We consider the spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates with the isotropic Rashba spin-orbit coupling in a two-dimensional toroidal trap. Three types of striped phases are found in a nonrotational system, i.e., the stripe phase with the periodic density modulation along the azimuthal direction, the stripe phase with the periodic density modulation along both the azimuthal and the radial directions, and the stripe phase with the periodic density modulation along the radial direction. By adding the rotation, the condensates occupy the mF=0 component for small rotational frequency, while they occupy both the mF=1 and ${m}_{F}=\ensuremath{-}1$ components for large rotational frequency when both the relative interaction and the spin-orbit coupling are weak. For the stronger relative interaction and spin-orbit coupling, the vortices of the system are elongated along the radial direction and linked one after another. As the rotational frequency further increases, the density evolves from the elongated effect of the vortices into a laminar vortex ring.
Abstract We study the miscibility properties and ground state phases of two-component spin–orbit (SO) coupled Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) in a harmonic trap with strong axial confinement. By numerically solving the coupled Gross–Pitaevskii equations in the two-dimensional setting, we analyze the SO-coupled BECs for two possible permutations of the intra- and interspecies interactions, namely (i) weak intra- and weak interspecies interactions (W–W) and (ii) weak intra- and strong interspecies interactions (W–S). Considering the density overlap integral as a miscibility order parameter, we investigate the miscible–immiscible transition by varying the coupling parameters. We obtain various ground state phases, including plane wave, half quantum vortex, elongated plane wave, and different stripe wave patterns for W–W interactions. For finite Rabi coupling, an increase in SO coupling strength leads to the transition from the fully miscible to the partially miscible state. We also characterize different ground states in the coupling parameter space using the root mean square sizes of the condensate. The spin density vector for the ground state phases exhibits density, quadrupole and dipole like spin polarizations. For the W–S interaction, in addition to that observed in the W–W case, we witness semi vortex, mixed mode, and shell-like immiscible phases. We notice a wide variety of spin polarizations, such as density, dipole, quadrupole, symbiotic, necklace, and stripe-like patterns for the W–S case. A detailed investigation in the coupling parameter space indicates immiscible to miscible state phase transition upon varying the Rabi coupling for a fixed Rashba SO coupling. The critical Rabi coupling for the immiscible–miscible phase transition decreases upon increasing the SO coupling strength.
Abstract We consider the ground-state properties of Rashba spin–orbit-coupled pseudo-spin-1/2 Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) in a rotating two-dimensional (2D) toroidal trap. In the absence of spin–orbit coupling (SOC), the increasing rotation frequency enhances the creation of giant vortices for the initially miscible BECs, while it can lead to the formation of semiring density patterns with irregular hidden vortex structures for the initially immiscible BECs. Without rotation, strong 2D isotropic SOC yields a heliciform-stripe phase for the initially immiscible BECs. Combined effects of rotation, SOC, and interatomic interactions on the vortex structures and typical spin textures of the ground state of the system are discussed systematically. In particular, for a fixed rotation frequency above the critical value, the increasing isotropic SOC favors a visible vortex necklace in each component which is accompanied by a hidden giant vortex plus a (several) hidden vortex necklace(s) in the central region. In the case of one-dimensional anisotropic SOC, large SOC strength results in the generation of hidden linear vortex string and the transition from initial component separation (component mixing) to component mixing (component separation). Furthermore, the peculiar spin textures including skyrmion lattice, skyrmion pair and skyrmion string are revealed in this system.