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arXiv:2503.17317 · Physical Review A

Modeled vortex dynamics in a Bose-Einstein condensate in a rotating lattice

P. Capuzzi, Dora M. Jezek

Published Jan 27, 2025• 2 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study the dynamics of vortices in a Bose-Einstein condensate within a rotating four-site lattice, which can be effectively described by a multimode model. Such a vortex dynamics develops along the low-density paths that separate the sites, and it is ruled by the phase differences between them. Hence, by appropriately selecting the initial conditions for on-site populations and phase differences, one can access distinct types of evolutions. We show that, by choosing equal populations in alternate sites, one can construct two-mode model Hamiltonians, which allows us to model a large variety of associated vortex orbits. In particular, one can select the type of trajectory of the vortex and predict the creation and annihilation of vortex-antivortex pairs near the trap center. Estimates for the periods of closed vortex orbits and for the times that the vortices spend inside the lattice when dealing with open orbits, are obtained in terms of the two-mode models parameters and the rotation frequency only. We believe that the present study establishes a suitable platform to engineer different vortex dynamics.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.111.013317

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We study the nucleation and dynamics of vortices in rotating lattice potentials where weakly linked condensates are formed with each condensate exhibiting an almost axial symmetry. Due to such a symmetry, the on-site phases acquire a linear dependence on the coordinates as a result of the rotation, which allows us to predict the position of vortices along the low-density paths that separate the sites. We first show that, for a system of atoms loaded in a four-site square lattice potential, subject to a constant rotation frequency, the analytical expression that we obtain for the positions of vortices of the stationary arrays accurately reproduces the full three-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii results. We then study the time-dependent vortex nucleation process when a linear ramp of the rotation frequency is applied to a lattice with 16 sites. We develop a formula for the number of nucleated vortices which turns out to have a linear dependence on the rotation frequency with a smaller slope than that of the standard estimate which is valid in the absence of the lattice. From time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii simulations we further find that the on-site populations remain almost constant during the time evolution instead of spreading outwards, as expected from the action of the centrifugal force. Therefore, the time-dependent phase difference between neighboring sites acquires a running behavior typical of a self-trapping regime. We finally show that, in accordance with our predictions, this fast phase-difference evolution provokes a rapid vortex motion inside the lattice. Our analytical expressions may be useful for describing other vortex processes in systems with the same on-site axial symmetry.
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Atomic clouds in a rotating optical lattice are at the intellectual intersection of several major paradigms of condensed matter physics. An optical lattice simulates the periodic potential ubiquitous in solid state physics, while rotation probes the superfluid character of these cold atomic gases by driving the formation of quantized vortices. Here we explore the theory of vortices in an optical lattice. We first provide a detailed introduction section aimed at providing the reader with the information necessary to understand and appreciate the research presented in later chapters. Next we study an infinite square lattice configuration of vortices in a rotating optical lattice near the superfluid-Mott-insulator transition. We find a series of abrupt structural phase transitions where vortices are pinned with their cores only on plaquettes or only on sites. We discuss connections between these vortex structures and the Hofstadter-butterfly spectrum of free particles on a rotating lattice. We then investigate vortex configurations within a harmonically trapped Bose-Einstein condensate in a rotating optical lattice. We find that proximity to the Mott insulating state dramatically affects the vortex structures. To illustrate we give examples in which the vortices: (i) all sit at a fixed distance from the center of the trap, forming a ring, or (ii) coalesce at the center of the trap, forming a giant vortex. We model time-of-flight expansion to demonstrate the experimental observability of our predictions. Finally for a trapped gas far from the Mott regime, the competition between vortex-vortex interactions and pinning to the optical lattice results in a complicated energy landscape, which leads to hysteretic evolution. The qualitative structure of the vortex configurations depends on the commensurability between the vortex density and the site density - with regular lattices when these are commensurate, and concentric rings when they are not. Again we model the imaging of these structures by calculating time-of-flight column densities. As in the absence of the optical lattice, the vortices are much more easily observed in a time-of-flight image than in-situ.
We study numerically the vortex-lattice formation in a rapidly rotating uniform quasi-two-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a box trap. We consider two types of boxes: square and circle. In a square-shaped 2D box trap, when the number of generated vortices is the square of an integer, the vortices are found to be arranged in a perfect square lattice, although deviations near the center are found when the number of generated vortices is arbitrary. In case of a circular box trap, the generated vortices in the rapidly rotating BEC lie on concentric closed orbits. Near the center, these orbits have the shape of polygons, whereas near the periphery the orbits are circles. The circular box trap is equivalent to the rotating cylindrical bucket used in early experiment(s) with liquid He II. The number of generated vortices in both cases is in qualitative agreement with Feynman's universal estimate. The numerical simulation for this study is performed by a solution of the underlying mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equation in the rotating frame, where the wave function for the generated vortex lattice is a stationary state. Consequently, the imaginary-time propagation method can be used for a solution of the GP equation, known to lead to an accurate numerical solution. We also demonstrated the dynamical stability of the vortex lattices in real-time propagation upon a small change of the angular frequency of rotation, using the converged imaginary-time wave function as the initial state.
We develop a multimode model that describes the dynamics on a rotating Bose-Einstein condensate confined by a ring-shaped optical lattice with large filling numbers. The parameters of the model are obtained as a function of the rotation frequency using full 3D Gross-Pitaevskii simulations. From such numerical calculations, we extract the velocity field induced at each site and analyze the relation and the differences between the phase of the hopping parameter of our model and the Peierls phase. To this end, a detailed discussion of such phases is presented in geometrical terms which takes into account the position of the junctions for different configurations. For circularly symmetric onsite densities a simple analytical relation between the hopping phase and the angular momentum is found for arbitrary number of sites. Finally, we confront the results of the rotating multimode model dynamics with Gross-Pitaevskii simulations finding a perfect agreement.