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arXiv:2510.18375 · Chinese Physics B

Dynamically generating superflow in a bosonic ring via phase imprinting

Ke-Ji 科技 Chen 陈, Fan 凡 Wu 吴

Published May 9, 2025• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Abstract Phase imprinting enables the dynamic generation of superflow in bosonic atoms, effectively overcoming traditional limitations such as vortex number constraints and heating effects. However, the mechanisms underlying superflow formation remain insufficiently understood. In this work, we reveal these mechanisms by studying the time evolution of the transferred total angular momentum and the quantized current throughout the phase imprinting process, achieved through numerically solving the time-dependent Schrödinger and Gross–Pitaevskii equations. We demonstrate that the Bose gas dynamically acquires angular momentum through the density depletion induced by the phase imprinting potential, whereas quantized currents emerge from azimuthal phase slips accompanied by complete density depletions. Regarding the impact of system parameters, such as interactions, we find that interactions hinder superflow formation, as the azimuthal density distribution becomes less susceptible to the phase imprinting potential. Our findings offer microscopic insights into the dynamic development of superflow during the phase imprinting process and provide valuable guidance for ongoing experimental efforts.

DOI
10.1088/1674-1056/add67b

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Abstract Phase imprinting enables the dynamic generation of superflow in bosonic atoms, effectively overcoming traditional limitations such as vortex number constraints and heating effects. However, the mechanisms underlying superflow formation remain insufficiently understood. In this work, we reveal these mechanisms by studying the time evolution of the transferred total angular momentum and the quantized current throughout the phase imprinting process, achieved through numerically solving the time-dependent Schrödinger and Gross–Pitaevskii equations. We demonstrate that the Bose gas dynamically acquires angular momentum through the density depletion induced by the phase imprinting potential, whereas quantized currents emerge from azimuthal phase slips accompanied by complete density depletions. Regarding the impact of system parameters, such as interactions, we find that interactions hinder superflow formation, as the azimuthal density distribution becomes less susceptible to the phase imprinting potential. Our findings offer microscopic insights into the dynamic development of superflow during the phase imprinting process and provide valuable guidance for ongoing experimental efforts.
We study the dynamic generation of persistent current by phase imprinting fermionic atoms in a ring geometry at zero temperature. Mediated by the pairing interaction, the Fermi condensate dynamically acquires a quantized current by developing azimuthal phase slips, as well as density and pairing-order-parameter depletions. Resorting to the Bogolioubov–de Gennes formalism, we investigate the time evolution of the transferred total angular momentum and the quantized superfluid current throughout the phase-imprinting process. This enables a detailed self-consistent analysis of the impact of interaction, as well as different initial pairing states, on the superflow formation, in contrast to previous theoretical analysis based on the Gross-Pitaevskii equation with artificially imposed phases. In particular, we show that, as the interaction strength increases, the azimuthal density distribution becomes less susceptible to the phase imprinting potential, leading to a smaller quantized current under the same imprinting parameters. Our results offer microscopic insights into the dynamic development of superflow in the phase-imprinting process, and are helpful for the ongoing experimental effort.
Abstract We present a kinetic description of superfluid currents in ring-shaped Bose-Einstein condensates based on the Wigner phase-space formalism. Starting from the Gross-Pitaevskii equation in a toroidal geometry, we derive a Vlasov-type equation for the angular Wigner function, in which the mean-field interaction generates an effective force proportional to the density gradient. Within this framework, we obtain the dispersion relation of collective modes and recover the Bogoliubov spectrum in the long-wavelength limit. We show that the Landau criterion for superfluidity can be interpreted as the absence of resonant phase-space trajectories satisfying the condition ω=qvℓ\omega = q v_\ell ω=qvℓ​ ω = q v ℓ . In a ring geometry, the quantization of angular momentum leads to a discrete set of velocities, which suppresses the availability of resonant states and strongly inhibits Landau damping. In contrast, in the continuous limit R→∞R \rightarrow \infty R→∞ R → ∞ , the spectrum becomes quasi-continuous and the standard Landau damping mechanism is recovered, establishing a direct connection between kinetic resonances and the energetic criterion for superfluidity. We further analyze the role of Bogoliubov depletion by considering a finite-width angular momentum distribution. Although resonant states formally exist in this case, we show that, for flow velocities below the sound velocity, the phase-space distribution does not provide the gradients required for energy transfer, and the superfluid current remains dynamically stable. Our results provide a unified phase-space interpretation of superfluidity, highlighting the role of angular momentum quantization and the structure of the distribution function in determining the stability of persistent currents. Graphic abstract Phase-space interpretation of superfluid stability in a ring Bose-Einstein condensate. For flow velocities below the sound velocity, resonant phase-space trajectories are unavailable and the superflow remains stable, whereas above the sound velocity resonant coupling becomes possible, leading to kinetic instability
We investigate the role of vortices in the decay of persistent current states of annular atomic superfluids by solving numerically the Gross–Pitaevskii equation, and we directly compare our results with the 6Li experiment at LENS data. We theoretically model the optical phase-imprinting technique employed to experimentally excite finite-circulation states in the Bose–Einstein condensation regime, accounting for imperfections of the optical gradient imprinting profile. By comparing simulations of this realistic protocol to an ideal imprinting, we show that the introduced density excitations arising from imperfect imprinting are mainly responsible for limiting the maximum reachable winding number wmax in the superfluid ring. We also investigate the effect of a point-like obstacle with variable potential height V0 on the decay of circulating supercurrents. For a given obstacle height, a critical circulation wc exists, such that for an initial circulation w0 larger than wc the supercurrent decays through the emission of vortices, which cross the superflow and thus induce phase slippage. Higher values of the obstacle height V0 further favor the entrance of vortices, thus leading to lower values of wc. Furthermore, the stronger vortex-defect interaction at higher V0 leads to vortices that propagate closer to the center of the ring condensate. The combination of both these effects leads to an increase in the supercurrent decay rate for increasing w0, in agreement with experimental observations.
Topological phase imprinting is a well-established technique for deterministic vortex creation in spinor Bose-Einstein condensates of alkali-metal atoms. It was recently shown that counterdiabatic quantum control may accelerate vortex creation in comparison to the standard adiabatic protocol and suppress the atom loss due to nonadiabatic transitions. Here we apply this technique, assisted by an optical plug, for vortex pumping to theoretically show that sequential phase imprinting up to 20 cycles generates a vortex with a very large winding number. Our method significantly increases the fidelity of the pump for rapid pumping compared to the case without the counterdiabatic control, leading to the highest angular momentum per particle reported to date for the vortex pump. Our studies are based on numerical integration of the three-dimensional multicomponent Gross-Pitaevskii equation, which conveniently yields the density profiles, phase profiles, angular momentum, and other physically important quantities of the spin-1 system. Our results motivate the experimental realization of the vortex pump and studies of the rich physics it involves.
We investigate theoretically the generation of a persistent current in a Bose-Einstein condensate in a toroidal trap by means of phase imprinting. The phase-imprinting potential must be periodic around the torus, and will have parts that accelerate atoms in the direction opposite to the intended flow. We study the evolution of the average momentum and the momentum spread under a two-slope model potential numerically by using the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, and also in a simple classical-mechanics analogy. Because of the inevitable pollution caused by the opposite slopes of the potential, it is not possible to generate a pure persistent current. The same caveat presumably applies to vortices in higher-dimensional systems.
We propose a method to prepare states of given quantized circulation in annular Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) confined in a ring trap using the method of phase imprinting without relying on a two-photon angular momentum transfer. The desired phase profile is imprinted on the atomic wave function using a short light pulse with a tailored intensity pattern generated with a spatial light modulator. We demonstrate the realization of ``helicoidal'' intensity profiles suitable for this purpose. Due to the diffraction limit, the theoretical steplike intensity profile is not achievable in practice. We investigate the effect of imprinting an intensity profile smoothed by a finite optical resolution onto the annular BEC with a numerical simulation of the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation. This allows us to optimize the intensity pattern for a given target circulation to compensate for the limited resolution.