We elaborate a mechanism for the formation of stable solitons of the semivortex type (with vorticities 0 and 1 in their two components), populating a finite band gap in the spectrum of the spin-orbit-coupled binary Bose-Einstein condensate with the Zeeman splitting, in the two-dimensional (2D) free space, under conditions which make the kinetic-energy terms in the respective coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations negligible. Unlike a recent work which used long-range dipole-dipole interactions to construct stable gap solitons in a similar setting, we here demonstrate that stable solitons are supported by generic local interactions of both attractive and repulsive signs, provided that the relative strength of the cross- and self-interactions in the two-component system does not exceed a critical value $\ensuremath{\approx}0.77$. A boundary between stable and unstable fundamental 2D gap solitons is precisely predicted by the Vakhitov-Kolokolov criterion, while all excited states of the 2D solitons, with vorticities $\left(m,1+m\right)$ in the two components, $m=1,2,...$, are unstable. The analysis of the one-dimensional (1D) reduction of the system produces an exact analytical solution for the family of gap solitons which populate the entire band gap, the family being fully stable. Motion of the 1D solitons in the trapping potential is considered too, showing that their effective mass is positive or negative if the cubic nonlinearity is attractive or repulsive, respectively.
We elaborate a mechanism for the formation of stable solitons of the semivortex type (with vorticities 0 and 1 in their two components), populating a finite band gap in the spectrum of the spin-orbit-coupled binary Bose-Einstein condensate with the Zeeman splitting, in the two-dimensional (2D) free space, under conditions which make the kinetic-energy terms in the respective coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations negligible. Unlike a recent work which used long-range dipole-dipole interactions to construct stable gap solitons in a similar setting, we here demonstrate that stable solitons are supported by generic local interactions of both attractive and repulsive signs, provided that the relative strength of the cross- and self-interactions in the two-component system does not exceed a critical value \ensuremath≈0.77. A boundary between stable and unstable fundamental 2D gap solitons is precisely predicted by the Vakhitov-Kolokolov criterion, while all excited states of the 2D solitons, with vorticities (m,1+m) in the two components, m=1,2,..., are unstable. The analysis of the one-dimensional (1D) reduction of the system produces an exact analytical solution for the family of gap solitons which populate the entire band gap, the family being fully stable. Motion of the 1D solitons in the trapping potential is considered too, showing that their effective mass is positive or negative if the cubic nonlinearity is attractive or repulsive, respectively.
We present gap solitons (GSs) that can be created in free nearly two-dimensional (2D) space in dipolar spinor Bose-Einstein condensates with the spin-orbit coupling (SOC), subject to tight confinement, with size ${a}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}$, in the third direction. For quasi-2D patterns, with lateral sizes $l\ensuremath{\gg}{a}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}$, the kinetic-energy terms in the respective spinor Gross-Pitaevskii equations may be neglected in comparison with SOC. This gives rise to a band gap in the system's spectrum, in the presence of the Zeeman splitting between the spinor components. While the present system with contact interactions does not produce 2D solitons, stable gap solitons (GSs), with vorticities 0 and 1 in the two components, are found, in quasianalytical and numerical forms, under the action of dipole-dipole interaction (DDI). Namely, isotropic and anisotropic 2D GSs are obtained when the dipoles are polarized, respectively, perpendicular or parallel to the 2D plane. The GS families extend, as embedded solitons (ESs), into spectral bands, a part of the ES branch being stable for isotropic solitons. The GSs remain stable if the competing contact interaction, with the sign opposite to that of the DDI, is included, while the addition of the contact term with the same sign destabilizes the GSs, at first replacing them by breathers, and eventually leading to destruction of the solitons. Mobility and collision of the GSs are studied too, revealing negative and positive effective masses of the isotropic and anisotropic solitons, respectively.
We present an analysis of two-dimensional (2D) matter-wave solitons, governed by the pseudospinor system of Gross-Pitaevskii equations with self- and cross attraction, which includes the spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in the general Rashba-Dresselhaus form, and, separately, the Rashba coupling and the Zeeman splitting. Families of semivortex (SV) and mixed-mode (MM) solitons are constructed, which exist and are stable in free space, as the SOC terms prevent the onset of the critical collapse and create the otherwise missing ground states in the form of the solitons. The Dresselhaus SOC produces a destructive effect on the vortex solitons, while the Zeeman term tends to convert the MM states into the SV ones, which eventually suffer delocalization. Existence domains and stability boundaries are identified for the soliton families. For physically relevant parameters of the SOC system, the number of atoms in the 2D solitons is limited by ∼1.5×10^{4}. The results are obtained by means of combined analytical and numerical methods.
It is known that two-dimensional two-component fundamental solitons of the semivortex (SV) type, with vorticities (s_{+},s_{-})=(0,1) in their components, are stable ground states (GSs) in the spin-orbit-coupled (SOC) binary Bose-Einstein condensate with the contact self-attraction acting in both components, in spite of the possibility of the critical collapse in the system. However, excited states (ESs) of the SV solitons, with the vorticity set (s_{+},s_{-})=(S_{+},S_{+}+1) and S_{+}=1,2,3,..., are unstable in the same system. We construct ESs of SV solitons in the SOC system with opposite signs of the self-interaction in the two components. The main finding is stability of the ES-SV solitons, with the extra vorticity (at least) up to S_{+}=6. The threshold value of the norm for the onset of the critical collapse, N_{thr}, in these excited states is higher than the commonly known critical value, N_{c}≈5.85, associated with the single-component Townes solitons, N_{thr} increasing with the growth of S_{+}. A velocity interval for stable motion of the GS-SV solitons is found too. The results suggest a solution for the challenging problem of the creation of stable vortex solitons with high topological charges.
It was recently found that, under the action of the spin-orbit coupling (SOC) and Zeeman splitting (ZS), binary BEC with intrinsic cubic nonlinearity supports families of gap solitons, provided that the kinetic energy is negligible in comparison with the SOC and ZS terms. We demonstrate that, also under the action of SOC and ZS, a similar setting may be introduced for BEC with two components representing different atomic states, resonantly coupled by microwave radiation, while the Poisson's equation accounts for the feedback of the two-component atomic wave function onto the radiation. The microwave-mediated interaction induces an effective nonlinear trapping potential, which strongly affects the purport of the linear spectrum in this system. As a result, families of both gap and embedded solitons (those overlapping with the continuous spectrum) are found, being chiefly stable. The shape of the solitons features exact or broken skew symmetry. In addition to fundamental solitons (whose shape may or may not include a node), a family of dipole solitons is constructed too, which are even more stable than their fundamental counterparts. A nontrivial stability area is identified for moving solitons in the present system, which lacks Galilean invariance. Colliding solitons merge into a single one.
Solitons are self-trapped modes existing in various nonlinear systems. Creating stable solitons in two- and three-dimensional settings is a challenging goal in various branches of physics. Several methods have been developed theoretically and experimentally to achieve this, but few of them can support stable multi-dimensional solitons in free space. Recently, a new scheme using spin-orbit-coupling (SOC) has been proposed to create stable 2D solitons in Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs). This paper reviews recent theoretical progress on creating stable 2D solitons in spinor dipolar BEC with SOC, combined with long-range dipole-dipole interaction (DDI), Zeeman splitting (ZS) and contact nonlinearity, in free space. The continuous family of stable symmetric vortex solitons (SVS), asymmetric vortex solitons (AVS), as well as gap solitons (GS) is found via different settings. Their existence and stability conditions are summarized and discussed in detail. The mobility properties of these types of solitons are also addressed. For SVS, a potential method to manipulate its shape and mobility is investigated. These results are supposed to enrich our understanding of 2D solitons and help create multi-dimensional solitons in experiments.
Models of two-dimensional (2D) traps, with double-well structure in the third direction, for Bose-Einstein condensates are introduced with attractive or repulsive interactions between atoms. The models are based on systems of linearly coupled 2D Gross-Pitaevskii equations, where the coupling accounts for tunneling between the wells. Each well carries an optical lattice (OL) (stable 2D solitons cannot exist without OLs). The linear coupling splits each finite band gap in the spectrum of the single-component model into two subgaps. The main subject of the work is spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) in two-component 2D solitons and localized vortices (SSB was not considered before in 2D settings). Using variational approximation (VA) and numerical methods, we demonstrate that, in a system with attraction or repulsion, SSB occurs in families of symmetric or antisymmetric solitons (or vortices), respectively. The corresponding bifurcation destabilizes the original solution branch and gives rise to a stable branch of asymmetric solitons or vortices. The VA provides for an accurate description of the emerging branch of asymmetric solitons. In the model with attraction, all stable branches eventually terminate due to the onset of collapse. Stable asymmetric solitons in higher finite band gaps and vortices with a multiple topological charge are found too. The models also give rise to first examples of embedded solitons and embedded vortices (the states located inside Bloch bands) in two dimensions. In the linearly coupled system with opposite signs of the nonlinearity in the two cores, two distinct types of stable solitons and vortices are found, dominated by either the self-attractive component or the self-repulsive one. In the system with a mismatch between the two OLs, a pseudobifurcation is found: when the mismatch attains its largest value $(\ensuremath{\pi})$, the bifurcation does not happen, as branches of different solutions asymptotically approach each other, but fail to merge.