We obtain a striking spin soliton in a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate and investigate its motions in the presence of a constant force. The initially static spin soliton first moves in a direction opposite to the force and then changes direction, showing an extraordinary ac oscillation. The underlying mechanism is uncovered: the spin soliton can exhibit a periodic transition between negative and positive inertial mass because of a particular relation between its energy and moving velocity. We then develop a quasiparticle model that can account for this extraordinary oscillation. Important implications and possible applications are discussed.
We obtain a striking spin soliton in a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate and investigate its motions in the presence of a constant force. The initially static spin soliton first moves in a direction opposite to the force and then changes direction, showing an extraordinary ac oscillation. The underlying mechanism is uncovered: the spin soliton can exhibit a periodic transition between negative and positive inertial mass because of a particular relation between its energy and moving velocity. We then develop a quasiparticle model that can account for this extraordinary oscillation. Important implications and possible applications are discussed.
We investigate the energy-velocity dispersion relation of spin solitons with arbitrary initial velocities. Based on the dispersion relation, we further characterize the inertial mass of a spin soliton and find two critical velocities to distinguish between the positive mass and negative mass. One critical velocity separates the initial negative and positive masses, and the other denotes the velocity for negative-positive mass transition during an acceleration process. With the aid of the two critical velocities, we further propose two possible ways to observe the pure negative mass effect of a spin soliton. Moreover, the relations between the soliton's width and its velocity are discussed according to the variational results. We report that the soliton width can become narrower with larger moving speed (when a spin soliton possesses positive mass), in sharp contrast to the dark solitons reported before. These results would motivate experiments to observe negative mass effects of solitons in Bose-Einstein condensates.
Solitons in multi-component Bose-Einstein condensates have been paid much attention, due to the stability and wide applications of them. The exact soliton solutions are usually obtained for integrable models. In this paper, we present four families of exact spin soliton solutions for non-integrable cases in spin-1 Bose-Einstein Condensates. The whole particle density is uniform for the spin solitons, which is in sharp contrast to the previously reported solitons of integrable models. The spectrum stability analysis and numerical simulation indicate the spin solitons can exist stably. The spin density redistribution happens during the collision process, which depends on the relative phase and relative velocity between spin solitons. The non-integrable properties of the systems can bring spin solitons experience weak amplitude and location oscillations after collision. These stable spin soliton excitations could be used to study the negative inertial mass of solitons, the dynamics of soliton-impurity systems, and the spin dynamics in Bose-Einstein condensates.
We study magnetic solitons, solitary waves of spin polarization (i.e., magnetization), in binary Bose-Einstein condensates in the presence of Rabi coupling. We show that the system exhibits two types of magnetic solitons, called $2\ensuremath{\pi}$ and $0\ensuremath{\pi}$ solitons, characterized by a different behavior of the relative phase between the two spin components. $2\ensuremath{\pi}$ solitons exhibit a $2\ensuremath{\pi}$ jump of the relative phase, independent of their velocity, the static domain wall explored by Son and Stephanov being an example of such $2\ensuremath{\pi}$ solitons with vanishing velocity and magnetization. $0\ensuremath{\pi}$ solitons instead do not exhibit any asymptotic jump in the relative phase. Systematic results are provided for both types of solitons in uniform matter. Numerical calculations in the presence of a one-dimensional harmonic trap reveal that a $2\ensuremath{\pi}$ soliton evolves in time into a $0\ensuremath{\pi}$ soliton, and vice versa, oscillating around the center of the trap. Results for the effective mass, the Landau critical velocity, and the role of the transverse confinement are also discussed.
We have investigated the dynamics of bright solitons in a spin–orbit coupled spin-1 Bose–Einstein condensate analytically and numerically. By using the hyperbolic sine function as the trial function to describe a plane wave bright soliton with a single finite momentum, we have derived the motion equations of soliton’s spin and center of mass, and obtained its exact analytical solutions. Our results show that the spin–orbit coupling couples the soliton’s spin with its center-of-mass motion, the spin oscillations induced by the exchange of atoms between components result in the periodical oscillation of center-of-mass, and the motion of center of mass of soliton can be viewed as a superposition of periodical and linear motions. Our analytical results have also been confirmed by the direct numerical simulations of Gross–Pitaevskii equations.
Close to the demixing transition, the degree of freedom associated with relative density fluctuations of a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate is described by a nondissipative Landau-Lifshitz equation. In the quasi-one-dimensional weakly immiscible case, this mapping surprisingly predicts that a dark-bright soliton should oscillate when subject to a constant force favoring separation of the two components. We propose a realistic experimental implementation of this phenomenon which we interpret as a spin-Josephson effect in the presence of a movable barrier.
We present the numerical results of the structure and dynamics of the self-bound ground state arising solely because of the presence of beyond-mean-field quantum fluctuation in spin-orbit- (SO-) coupled binary Bose-Einstein condensates in one dimension. We obtain an analytical soliton solution for nonzero SO coupling that matches quite well with the numerical results. Further, we investigate the dynamical stability of these solitons by adopting three protocols, such as (i) adding initial velocity to each component, (ii) quenching the SO- and Rabi-coupling parameters at initial and finite time, and (iii) allowing collision between the two spin components by giving equal and opposite direction velocity to them. For small velocity perturbation, the soliton has the presence of the breathing oscillation, while large velocity perturbations transform the soliton into moving solitons. The maximum breathing frequency exhibits power-law dependence on the Rabi-coupling frequency with an exponent $\ensuremath{\sim}0.16$. The quenching of SO and Rabi couplings results in several interesting dynamical features, such as dynamical phase transition from plane to stripe phase, dynamical flipping of the spin state, and secondary solitonic modes. In the absence of the SO and Rabi couplings, depending upon the velocity of the up- and down-spin components, the collision between them is either elastic or inelastic, which is consistent with the earlier numerical and experimental observations. However, in the presence of coupling parameters, the collision appears to be inelastic and quasielastic in nature.