We consider two-component Bose–Einstein condensates subject to Weyl spin–orbit coupling. We obtain mean-field ground state phase diagram by variational method. In the regime where interspecies coupling is larger than intraspecies coupling, the system is found to be fully polarized and condensed at a finite momentum lying along the quantization axis. We characterize this phase by studying the excitation spectrum, the sound velocity, the quantum depletion of condensates, the shift of ground state energy, and the static structure factor. We find that spin–orbit coupling and interspecies coupling generally leads to competing effects.
We consider two-component Bose–Einstein condensates subject to Weyl spin–orbit coupling. We obtain mean-field ground state phase diagram by variational method. In the regime where interspecies coupling is larger than intraspecies coupling, the system is found to be fully polarized and condensed at a finite momentum lying along the quantization axis. We characterize this phase by studying the excitation spectrum, the sound velocity, the quantum depletion of condensates, the shift of ground state energy, and the static structure factor. We find that spin–orbit coupling and interspecies coupling generally leads to competing effects.
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.
We find that the Feynman relation of Bose-Einstein condensates with spin-orbit coupling, which relates the energy of excitations, the static structure factor in condensed phase, and the dispersion of free bosons, is not satisfied in the whole momentum space. The dispersion is highly anisotropic and more divergent in the infrared limit compared to that without spin-orbit coupling because of spontaneous breaking of the O(2) symmetry of the ground state. And the dispersion also exhibits time reversal asymmetry for plane-wave condensates, which is condensed on a momentum with a finite value. We also find that larger spin-orbit coupling makes the excitations out of condensates more coherent.
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.
Abstract While a spin–orbit-coupled spin-1 Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) has been experimentally observed, its elementary excitations remain unclear in the stripe phase. Here, we systematically study the elementary excitations in three distinct phases of a spin–orbit-coupled spin-1 BEC. We find that the excitation spectrum as well as the corresponding static response function and structure factor depend strongly on spin–orbit coupling parameters such as the quadratic Zeeman field and the Rabi frequency. In the stripe phase, besides two gapless Goldstone modes, we show the existence of roton excitations. Finally, we demonstrate that quantum phase transitions between these different phases including the zero-momentum, plane wave and stripe phases are characterized by the sound velocities and the quantum depletion.
Abstract In the mean-field framework, using variational analysis and numerical simulation, we investigate the effect of anharmonic trap and atomic interaction on the ground-state phases of spin-orbit (SO) coupled Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) in the harmonic plus quartic potential. Then, the Gaussian wave function is selected to predict the analytical conditions of the phase transition boundary of the SO coupled BECs by using the variational method. We found that the anharmonicity of the external potential induces the SO coupled BECs to undergo a phase transition between the zero-momentum phase and plane-wave phase, which is more pronounced in the cases of weak harmonic potential or strong interspecies interaction. Since the potential energy of the system modified by anharmonicity competes with other energies of the system, the anharmonicity changes the critical SO coupling strength and Raman coupling strength when the phase transition occurs. At the same time, the critical anharmonic coefficients are also affected by interspecies interaction and harmonic potential. Finally, the correctness of the theoretical results is verified by numerical simulation of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.
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.