We explore topological excitations in a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate subjected to an in-plane sinusoidally varying magnetic field and Rashba spin-orbit coupling (SOC). In the absence of SOC, the periodic magnetic field induces vortex-antivortex structures in the $|F=1,{m}_{F}=\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1\ensuremath{\rangle}$ condensates at saddle points such that the net topological charge remains zero. The introduction of Rashba SOC breaks the system's symmetry, leading to nonconservation of overall angular momentum in the spin-1 condensate. This anisotropy results in the emergence of certain skyrmion spin textures. We provide a comparative study for various in-plane magnetic-field configurations while keeping the SOC strength constant. Our numerical simulations within the mean-field framework reveal the potential to engineer diverse topological excitations controlled by the interplay between the spin-orbit coupling and in-plane magnetic field in a spinor condensate.
We explore topological excitations in a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate subjected to an in-plane sinusoidally varying magnetic field and Rashba spin-orbit coupling (SOC). In the absence of SOC, the periodic magnetic field induces vortex-antivortex structures in the ∣F=1,mF=\ifmmode±\else\textpm\fi1\ensuremath⟩ condensates at saddle points such that the net topological charge remains zero. The introduction of Rashba SOC breaks the system's symmetry, leading to nonconservation of overall angular momentum in the spin-1 condensate. This anisotropy results in the emergence of certain skyrmion spin textures. We provide a comparative study for various in-plane magnetic-field configurations while keeping the SOC strength constant. Our numerical simulations within the mean-field framework reveal the potential to engineer diverse topological excitations controlled by the interplay between the spin-orbit coupling and in-plane magnetic field in a spinor condensate.
Abstract We explore the spin texture dynamics of a harmonically trapped spin-1 Bose–Einstein condensate with Rashba spin–orbit coupling and ferromagnetic spin-exchange interactions under a sinusoidally varying magnetic field along the x-direction. This interplay yields an intrinsic spin texture in the ground state, forming a linear chain of alternating skyrmions at the saddle points of the magnetic field. Our study analyzes the spin-mixing dynamics for both a freely evolving and a controlled longitudinal magnetization. The spin-1 system exhibits the Einstein–de Haas effect for the first case, for which an exchange between the total orbital angular momentum and the spin angular momentum is observed, resulting in minimal oscillations about the initial position of the skyrmion chain. However, for the fixed magnetization dynamics, the skyrmion chain exhibits ample angular oscillations about the equilibrium position, with the temporary formation of new skyrmions to facilitate the oscillatory motion. For the case of fixed magnetization, this contrast now stems from the exchange between the canonical and spin-dependent contribution to the orbital angular momentum. The variation in canonical angular momentum is linked to the angular oscillations, while the spin-dependent angular momentum accounts for the creation or annihilation of skyrmions. We confirm the presence of scissors mode excitations in the spin texture due to the angular skyrmion oscillations.
Abstract We investigate the topological excitations of rotating spin-1 ferromagnetic Bose–Einstein condensates with spin–orbit coupling (SOC) in an in-plane quadrupole field. Such a system sustains a rich variety of exotic vortex structures due to the spinor order parameter and the interplay among in-plane quadrupole field, SOC, rotation, and interatomic interaction. For the nonrotating case, with the increase of the quadrupole field strength, the system experiences a transition from a coreless polar-core vortex with a bright soliton to a singular polar-core vortex with a density hole. Without rotation but with a fixed quadrupole field, when the SOC strength increases, the system transforms from a central Mermin–Ho vortex into a criss-crossed vortex–antivortex string lattice. For the rotating case, we give a phase diagram with respect to the quadrupole field strength and the SOC strength. It is shown that the rotating system supports four typical quantum phases: vortex necklace, diagonal vortex chain cluster, single diagonal vortex chain, and few vortex states. Furthermore, the system favors novel spin textures and skyrmion excitations including an antiskyrmion, a criss-crossed half-skyrmion–half-antiskyrmion lattice, a skyrmion-meron necklace, a symmetric half-skyrmion lattice, and an asymmetric skyrmion-meron lattice.
We study the topological defects and spin structures of rotating SU(3) spin–orbit-coupled spin F=1 Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) in an in-plane quadrupole field with ferromagnetic spin interaction, and the BECs is confined by a harmonic trap. Without rotation, as the quadrupole field strength is increased, the spin F=1 BECs with SU(3) spin–orbit coupling (SOC) evolves from the initial Thomas–Fermi phase into the stripe phase; then, it enters a vortex–antivortex cluster state and eventually a polar-core vortex state. In the absence of rotation with the given quadrupole field, the enhancing SU(3) SOC strength can cause a phase transition from a central Mermin–Ho vortex to a vortex–antivortex cluster, subsequently converting to a bending vortex–antivortex chain. In addition, when considering rotation, it is found that this system generates the following five typical quantum phases: a three-vortex-chain cluster structure with mutual angles of approximately 2π3, a tree-fork-like vortex chain cluster, a rotationally symmetric vortex necklace, a diagonal vortex chain cluster, and a density hole vortex cluster. Particularly, the system exhibits unusual topological structures and spin textures, such as a bending half-skyrmion–half-antiskyrmion (meron–antimeron) chain, three half-skyrmion (meron) chains with mutual angles of an approximately 2π3, slightly curved diagonal half-skyrmion (meron) cluster lattice, a skyrmion–half-skyrmion (skyrmion-meron) necklace, and a tree-fork-like half-skyrmion (meron) chain cluster lattice.
We study the vortex-lattice formation in a rotating Rashba spin-orbit (SO) coupled quasi-two-dimensional (quasi-2D) hyper-fine spin-1 spinor Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in the x-y plane using a numerical solution of the underlying mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii equation. In this case, the non-rotating Rashba SO-coupled spinor BEC can have topological excitation in the form of vortices of different angular momenta in the three components, e.g. the (0, +1, +2)- and (-1, 0, +1)-type states in ferromagnetic and anti-ferromagnetic spinor BEC: the numbers in the parenthesis denote the intrinsic angular momentum of the vortex states of the three components with the negative sign denoting an anti-vortex. The presence of these states with intrinsic vorticity breaks the symmetry between rotation with vorticity along the z and -z axes and thus generates a rich variety of vortex-lattice and anti-vortex-lattice states in a rotating quasi-2D spin-1 spinor ferromagnetic and anti-ferromagnetic BEC, not possible in a scalar BEC. For weak SO coupling, we find two types of symmetries of these states - hexagonal and 'square'. The hexagonal (square) symmetry state has vortices arranged in closed concentric orbits with a maximum of 6, 12, 18… (8, 12, 16…) vortices in successive orbits. Of these two symmetries, the square vortex-lattice state is found to have the smaller energy.
Abstract We investigate the ground-state properties of spin–orbit-coupled pseudo-spin-1/2 dipolar Bose–Einstein condensates in a two-dimensional harmonic trap and an in-plane quadrupole field. The effects of spin–orbit coupling (SOC), dipole–dipole interaction (DDI) and the in-plane quadrupole field on the ground-state structures and spin textures of the system are systematically analyzed and discussed. For fixed SOC and DDI strengths, the system shows a quadrupole stripe phase with a half-quantum vortex, or a quadrupole Thomas–Fermi phase with a half-quantum antivortex for small quadrupole field strength, depending on the ratio between inter- and intraspecies interaction. As the quadrupole field strength enhances, the system realizes a ring mixed phase with a hidden vortex–antivortex cluster rather than an ordinary giant vortex in each component. Of particular interest, when the strengths of DDI and quadrupole field are fixed, strong SOC leads to the formation of criss-crossed vortex string structure. For given SOC and quadrupole field, the system for strong DDI displays a sandwich-like structure, or a special delaminated structure with a prolate antivortex in the spin-up component. In addition, typical spin textures for the ground states of the system are analyzed. It is shown that the system sustains exotic topological structures, such as a hyperbolic spin domain wall, skyrmion-half-antiskyrmion-antiskyrmion lattice, half-skyrmion-skyrmion-half-antiskyrmion lattice, and a drum-shaped antimeron.
We study the dynamics of a quasi-two-dimensional (2D) spin-orbit-coupled ferromagnetic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) under a linear Zeeman magnetic field disturbed by a moving obstacle. The Bogoliubov excitation spectrums and corresponding critical excitations in different situations are analyzed. The structure of the coreless vortex or antivortex generated by the moving obstacle has been investigated. When the Zeeman field is parallel to the 2D system plane, the vortex cores for the three components of a (an) vortex (antivortex) could be arranged into a line which is vertical to the Zeeman field, and their order would be reversed as the spin-orbit coupling increases. When the Zeeman field is perpendicular to the plane, a skyrmionlike vortex ground state could be induced via spin-orbit interaction even by a static obstacle and thus becomes unique in contrast with the scalar BECs or spinor BECs without spin-orbit coupling. This topological structure is also found to be dynamically stable if the obstacle is moving at a relatively small velocity.