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arXiv:2408.07570 · Physical Review A

Vortices in the many-body excited states of interacting bosons in two dimensions

Mateusz Ślusarczyk, Krzysztof Pawłowski

Published May 23, 2025• 1 citation
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Abstract

Quantum vortices play an important role in the physics of two-dimensional quantum many-body systems, though they usually are understood in the single-particle framework as the mean-field approach. Inspired by the study on the relations between solitons and yrast states, we investigate here the emergence of vortices from the eigenstates of an $N$-body Hamiltonian of interacting particles trapped in a disk. We analyze states that appear by consecutively measuring the positions of particles. These states have densities, phases, and energies closely resembling mean-field vortices. We discuss similarities, but also point out purely many-body features, such as vortex smearing due to the quantum fluctuation of their center. The ab initio analysis of the many-body system, and mean-field approaches are supported by the analysis within the Bogoliubov approach.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.111.053314

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Quantum vortices play an important role in the physics of two-dimensional quantum many-body systems, though they usually are understood in the single-particle framework as the mean-field approach. Inspired by the study on the relations between solitons and yrast states, we investigate here the emergence of vortices from the eigenstates of an NNN-body Hamiltonian of interacting particles trapped in a disk. We analyze states that appear by consecutively measuring the positions of particles. These states have densities, phases, and energies closely resembling mean-field vortices. We discuss similarities, but also point out purely many-body features, such as vortex smearing due to the quantum fluctuation of their center. The ab initio analysis of the many-body system, and mean-field approaches are supported by the analysis within the Bogoliubov approach.
We use the configuration interaction technique to study vortex formation in rotating systems of interacting spinless fermions and bosons trapped in a two-dimensional harmonic potential. In the fermionic case, the vortices appear as holes in the Fermi sea and localize in rings. The yrast spectrum is dominated by rigid rotation of the vortex ring, showing periodic oscillations. The Bose system shows a similar yrast spectrum and vortex formation. This can be explained by a one-to-one correspondence of the fermion and boson many-particle configurations. A simple mean-field model can reproduce the oscillations in the yrast spectrum, but fails to explain the localization of vortices.
In addition to the acoustic (phonon) excitations described above, specific excitations called ‘quantum vortices’ may exist in superfluid Bose systems. Attempts to incorporate the vortex excitations have already been made in the original version of Landau's theory (Landau, 1941). The existence of a periodical lattice of quantum vortices in a superconductor located in a magnetic field was conjectured by Abrikosov (1952, 1957). The idea of quantum vortices occurring in rotating helium below the λ-point was introduced independently by Onsager (1949) and Feynman (1955). In this section we present the description of quantum vortices in the functional integral formalism. We will also discuss the role of quantum vortices in the phase transition for the superfluid to the normal state. Our starting point is the functional integration scheme over fast and slow variables. We will apply this formalism mainly to two-dimensional Bose systems and will try to take into account vortex-like configurations of the Bose field. We thus come to the conclusion that the system of vortices is equivalent to the system of charged particles interacting via a new field which play the role of electromagnetic field. At small temperatures there are only pairs with opposite signs, bounded by the long-range logarithm potential. It turns out that the phase transition in the two-dimensional Bose system is nothing but the dissociation of bounded pairs. A similar approach to the three-dimensional systems leads to the conclusion that phase transition is accompanied here by creation of long vortex filaments.
The excitation spectrum of a highly condensed two-dimensional trapped Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is investigated within the rotating frame of reference. The rotation is used to transfer high-lying excited states to the low-energy spectrum of the BEC. We employ many-body linear-response theory and show that, once the rotation leads to a quantized vortex in the ground state, already the low-energy part of the excitation spectrum shows substantial many-body effects beyond the realm of mean-field theory. We demonstrate numerically that the many-body effects grow with the vorticity of the ground state, meaning that the rotation enhances them even for very weak repulsion. Furthermore, we explore the impact of the number of bosons NNN in the condensate on a low-lying single-particle excitation, which is describable within mean-field theory. Our analysis shows deviations between the many-body and mean-field results which clearly persist when NNN is increased up to the experimentally relevant regime, typically ranging from several thousand up to a million bosons in size. Implications are briefly discussed.
The main theme of this review is the many-body physics of vortices in quantum droplets of bosons or fermions in the limit of small particle numbers. Systems of interest include cold atoms in traps as well as electrons confined in quantum dots. When set to rotate, these in principle different quantum systems show remarkable analogies. The topics reviewed include the structure of the finite rotating many-body state, universality of vortex formation and localization of vortices in both bosonic and fermionic systems, and the emergence of particle-vortex composites in the quantum Hall regime. An overview of the computational many-body techniques sets focus on the configuration-interaction and density-functional methods. Studies of quantum droplets with one or several particle components, where vortices as well as coreless vortices may occur, are reviewed, and theoretical as well as experimental challenges are discussed.
Vortices are essential to angular momentum in quantum systems such as ultracold atomic gases. The existence of quantized vorticity in bosonic systems stimulated the development of the Gross-Pitaevskii mean-field approximation. However, the true dynamics of angular momentum in finite, interacting many-body systems like trapped Bose-Einstein condensates is enriched by the emergence of quantum correlations whose description demands more elaborate methods. Herein we theoretically investigate the full many-body dynamics of the acquisition of angular momentum by a gas of ultracold bosons in two dimensions using a standard rotation procedure. We demonstrate the existence of a novel mode of quantized vorticity, which we term the phantom vortex\textit{phantom vortex}phantom vortex that, contrary to the conventional mean-field vortex, can be detected as a topological defect of spatial coherence, but not\textit{not}not of the density. We describe previously unknown many-body mechanisms of vortex nucleation and show that angular momentum is hidden in phantom vortex modes which so far seem to have evaded experimental detection.
The production of quantized vortices having diverse structures is a remarkable effect of rotating Bose-Einstein condensates. Vortex formation described by the mean-field theory is valid only in the regime of weak interactions. The exploration of the rich and diverse physics of strongly interacting BEC requires a more general approach. This study explores the vortex formation of strongly interacting and rapidly rotating BEC from a general ab initio many-body perspective. We demonstrate that the quantized vortices form various structures that emerge from an intricate interplay between the angular momentum and many-body interaction. We examine the distinct impact of the angular velocity and interaction energy on the vortex formation. Our analysis shows that, while the angular rotation generally augments the vortex formation, the interactions can enhance as well as impede the vortices production.