Two-dimensional vortex quantum droplets

Abstract

It was recently found that the Lee-Huang-Yang (LHY) correction to the mean-field Hamiltonian of binary atomic boson condensates suppresses the collapse and creates stable localized modes (two-component quantum droplets, QDs) in two and three dimensions (2D and 3D). In particular, the LHY effect modifies the effective Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE) in 2D by adding a logarithmic factor to the usual cubic term. In the framework of the accordingly modified two-component GPE system, we construct 2D self-trapped modes in the form of QDs with vorticity $S$ embedded into each component. Because of the effect of the logarithmic factor, the QDs feature a flat-top shape, which expands with the increase of $S$ and norm $N$. An essential finding, produced by a systematic numerical investigation and analytical estimates, is that the vortical QDs are stable (which is a critical issue for vortex solitons in nonlinear models) up to $S=5$, for $N$ exceeding a certain threshold value, which is predicted to scale as ${N}_{\mathrm{th}}\ensuremath{\sim}{S}^{4}$ for large $S$ (for three-dimensional QDs, the scaling is ${N}_{\mathrm{th}}\ensuremath{\sim}{S}^{6}$). The prediction is corroborated by numerical findings. Pivots of QDs with $S\ensuremath{\ge}2$ are subject to structural instability, as specially selected perturbations can split the single pivot in a set of $S$ or $S+2$ pivots corresponding to unitary vortices; however, the structural instability remains virtually invisible, as it occurs in a broad central ``hole'' of the vortex soliton, where values of fields are very small, and it does not cause any dynamical instability. In the condensate of $^{39}\mathrm{K}$ atoms, in which QDs with $S=0$ and a quasi-2D shape were created recently, the vortical droplets may have radial size $\ensuremath{\lesssim}30\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{m}$, with the number of atoms in the range of ${10}^{4}--{10}^{5}$. The role of three-body losses is considered too, demonstrating that they do not prevent the creation of the vortex droplets but may produce a noteworthy effect, leading to sudden splitting of ``light'' droplets. In addition, hidden-vorticity (HV) states in QDs, with topological charges ${S}_{+}=\ensuremath{-}{S}_{\ensuremath{-}}=1$ in their components, which are prone to strong instability in other settings, have their stability region too. Unstable HV states tend to spontaneously merge into zero-vorticity solitons. Collisions of QDs, which may lead to their merger, and dynamics of elliptically deformed QDs (which form rotating elongated patterns or ones with oscillations of the eccentricity) are briefly considered too.