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arXiv:2301.06856 · Physical Review A

Multicomponent states for trapped spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates in the presence of a magnetic field

Projjwal Kanti Kanjilal, A. Bhattacharyay

Published Nov 27, 2023• 2 citations

Abstract

In the presence of a magnetic field, multicomponent ground states appear in trapped spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates for both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic types of spin-spin interaction. We aim to produce an accurate analytical description of the multicomponent states which is of fundamental importance. Despite being in the so-called regime of the Thomas-Fermi approximation (condensates with large particle number), the scenario of multicomponent states is problematic under this approximation due to the large variation in densities of the subcomponents. We generalize the variational method that we have introduced [P. K. Kanjilal and A. Bhattacharyay, Eur. Phys. J. Plus 137, 547 (2022)] to overcome the limitations of the Thomas-Fermi approximation. We demonstrate that the variational method is crucial in identifying multicomponent ground states. A comparison of the results of the variational method, which is multimodal by construction, with that of the single-mode approximation is also presented in this paper to demonstrate a marked improvement in accuracy over the single-mode approximation. We have also looked into the phase transition between phase-matched and polar states in a trapped condensate using the variational method and have identified substantial change in the phase boundary. The correspondence of the phase diagram of the trapped case with the homogeneous one identifies other limitations of the Thomas-Fermi approximation as opposed to the more accurate variational method.

DOI: 10.1103/physreva.108.053322

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In the presence of a magnetic field, multicomponent ground states appear in trapped spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates for both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic types of spin-spin interaction. We aim to produce an accurate analytical description of the multicomponent states which is of fundamental importance. Despite being in the so-called regime of the Thomas-Fermi approximation (condensates with large particle number), the scenario of multicomponent states is problematic under this approximation due to the large variation in densities of the subcomponents. We generalize the variational method that we have introduced [P. K. Kanjilal and A. Bhattacharyay, Eur. Phys. J. Plus 137, 547 (2022)] to overcome the limitations of the Thomas-Fermi approximation. We demonstrate that the variational method is crucial in identifying multicomponent ground states. A comparison of the results of the variational method, which is multimodal by construction, with that of the single-mode approximation is also presented in this paper to demonstrate a marked improvement in accuracy over the single-mode approximation. We have also looked into the phase transition between phase-matched and polar states in a trapped condensate using the variational method and have identified substantial change in the phase boundary. The correspondence of the phase diagram of the trapped case with the homogeneous one identifies other limitations of the Thomas-Fermi approximation as opposed to the more accurate variational method.

We consider a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate trapped in a harmonic potential under the influence of a homogeneous magnetic field. We investigate spatial and spin structure of the mean-field ground states under constraints on the number of atoms and the total magnetization. We show that the trapping potential can make the antiferromagnetic condensate separate into three distinct phases and ferromagnetic condensate into two distinct phases. In the ferromagnetic case, the magnetization is located in the center of the harmonic trap, while in the antiferromagnetic case magnetized phases appear in the outer regions. We describe how the transition from the Thomas-Fermi regime to the single-mode approximation regime with decreasing number of atoms results in the disappearance of the domains. We suggest that the ground states can be created in experiment by adiabatically changing the magnetic-field strength.

We develop a simple and general variational method to estimate the solutions of the Gross-Pitaevskii equations and obtain the corresponding density profiles for all spin states of a trapped spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate. We further employ this approach to obtain the complete phase diagram of the system under quasi-one-dimensional harmonic confinement, with ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic spin interactions. We identify a suitable scaling that collapses all phase diagrams for different system sizes (i.e., total particle number) into a universal (system size-independent) phase diagram. The complete phase diagram for a confined system shows some significant qualitative differences compared to that of a condensate with homogeneous density distribution. The phase diagrams reported here could help identify the important parameter regimes in which phase transitions in the confined system, in general, occur. This knowledge of the region of phase boundaries can enable a reliable investigation of the instabilities near the boundaries that drive phase transitions.

Abstract We develop a simple and general variational method to estimate the solutions of the Gross–Pitaevskii equations and obtain the corresponding density profiles for all spin states of a trapped spin-1 Bose–Einstein condensate. We further employ this approach to obtain the complete phase diagram of the system under quasi-one-dimensional harmonic confinement, with ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic spin interactions. We identify a suitable scaling that collapses all phase diagrams for different system sizes (i.e., total particle number) into a universal (system size-independent) phase diagram. The complete phase diagram for a confined system shows some significant qualitative differences compared to that of a condensate with homogeneous density distribution. The phase diagrams reported here could help identify the important parameter regimes in which phase transitions in the confined system, in general, occur. This knowledge of the region of phase boundaries can enable a reliable investigation of the instabilities near the boundaries that drive phase transitions.

Abstract Investigation of ground state structures and phase separation under confinement is of great interest in spinor Bose–Einstein condensates. In this paper we show that, in general, within the Thomas–Fermi approximation, the phase separation scenario of stationary states can be obtained including all the mixed states on an equal footing for a spin-1 condensate under any confinement. According to the process used here, the density of each and every stationary states can be determined exactly in terms of the system parameters. This allows to write the expression for energy density of all states in a form which are not an explicit function of densities of those states. An energy density comparison therefore, among all the allowed stationary states can be done which will reveal domain structures depending on the system parameters. We study here, in details, a particular case of spherically symmetric harmonic confinement as an example and show a wide range of potential phase separation scenario for anti-ferromagnetic and ferromagnetic interactions.

We develop an analytic theory for the ground state patterns and their phase transitions for spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates on a bounded domain in the presence of a uniform magnetic field. Within the Thomas-Fermi approximation, these ground state patterns are composed of four basic states: magnetic state, nematic state, two-component state and three-component state, separated by interfaces. A complete phase diagram of the ground state patterns are found analytically with different quadratic Zeeman energy q and total magnetization M for both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic systems. Using the Γ-convergence technique, it is found that the semi-classical limits of these ground states minimize an energy functional which consists of interior interface energy plus a boundary contact energy. As a consequence, the interface between two different basic states has constant mean curvature, and the contact angle between the interface and the boundary obeys Young's relation.

Bose-Einstein condensates - a state of matter at low temperature in which a macroscopic amount of bosons occupy the quantum-mechanical ground state- were originally trapped magnetically. The drawback of this trapping method is that only the weak-ﬁeld seeking spin state is trapped and we therefore only have a one component i.e. scalar condensate. In contrast, optical trapping conﬁnes atoms of all spin state and therefore allows for spin degrees of freedom, resulting in spinor Bose Einstein condensates. In this thesis, density proﬁles of these spinor condensates have been calculated in Thomas-Fermi approximation. The proﬁles show areas with strict phase separation, but also areas with spin mixtures. For sodium atoms we get a strict separation between the mF = ±1 and the mF = 0 spin state in Thomas-Fermi approximation. This however causes discontinuities in the transition between spin domains and thus these interfaces were studied further. We found that the density proﬁle of a spin state behaves roughly like a hyperbolic tangent at such an interface. Finally, a diﬀerential equation is proposed that could be solved as a starting point of follow-up research.