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arXiv:2606.11919 · Physical Review A

Quantum tidal locking in orbiting Bose-Einstein condensates

Yaoyuan Fan, 石朔宇, Lang Cao, Ziyue He, Qiuxin Zhang, Dong Hu, Yu Wang, Qing Wang, Tianwei Zhou, Xiaoji Zhou

Published May 20, 2026• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Angular momentum coupling manifests widely in diverse physical systems, underpinning the emergent properties and collective dynamics across different scales. The tidal locking, which originates from the synchronization of rotational and orbital motions, has far-reaching impacts in celestial mechanics, reflecting fundamental processes of angular momentum transfer, energy dissipation, and evolution toward dynamical equilibrium. However, its counterpart in mesoscopic quantum fluids has remained largely unexplored. Here we demonstrate the emergence of quantum tidal locking in Bose-Einstein condensates undergoing central force motion in an anharmonic potential. The condensate follows a well-defined orbital trajectory in a static trap and experiences an effective rotating potential induced by the trap anharmonicity. The sustained geometric squeezing continuously deforms the condensate and drives a self-organized synchronization process, in which the intrinsic rotation gradually locks to the orbital motion. Numerical simulations further reveal the formation of a ring-shaped vortex array over longer timescales, arising from the coherent evolution of the rotating matter wave during the locking dynamics. Our findings establish quantum tidal locking in mesoscopic systems as a robust self-organized mechanism for generating and stabilizing circulating states.

DOI
10.1103/35kh-qp2g

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Angular momentum coupling manifests widely in diverse physical systems, underpinning the emergent properties and collective dynamics across different scales. The tidal locking, which originates from the synchronization of rotational and orbital motions, has far-reaching impacts in celestial mechanics, reflecting fundamental processes of angular momentum transfer, energy dissipation, and evolution toward dynamical equilibrium. However, its counterpart in mesoscopic quantum fluids has remained largely unexplored. Here we demonstrate the emergence of quantum tidal locking in Bose-Einstein condensates undergoing central force motion in an anharmonic potential. The condensate follows a well-defined orbital trajectory in a static trap and experiences an effective rotating potential induced by the trap anharmonicity. The sustained geometric squeezing continuously deforms the condensate and drives a self-organized synchronization process, in which the intrinsic rotation gradually locks to the orbital motion. Numerical simulations further reveal the formation of a ring-shaped vortex array over longer timescales, arising from the coherent evolution of the rotating matter wave during the locking dynamics. Our findings establish quantum tidal locking in mesoscopic systems as a robust self-organized mechanism for generating and stabilizing circulating states.
We study the creation of vortex states in a trapped Bose-Einstein condensate by a rotating force. For a harmonic trapping potential the rotating force induces only a circular motion of the whole condensate around the trap center which does not depend on the interatomic interaction. For the creation of a pure vortex state it is necessary to confine the atoms in an anharmonic trapping potential. The efficiency of the creation can be greatly enhanced by a sinusoidal variation of the force's angular velocity. We present analytical and numerical calculations for the case of a quartic trapping potential. The physical mechanism behind the requirement of an anharmonic trapping potential for the creation of pure vortex states is explained.
The ground state properties of strongly rotating bosons confined in an asymmetric anharmonic potential exhibit a split density distribution. However, the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of this split structure remain largely unexplored. Given that rotation is responsible for the breakup of the bosonic cloud, we investigate the out-of-equilibrium dynamics by abruptly changing the rotation frequency. Our study offers insights into the dynamics of trapped Bose-Einstein condensates in both symmetric and asymmetric anharmonic potentials under different rotation quench scenarios. In a rotationally symmetric trap, angular momentum is a good quantum number. Therefore, a rotation quench has no impact on the density distribution. In contrast, the absence of angular momentum conservation in asymmetric traps results in more complex dynamics. This allows rotation quenches to either inject into or extract angular momentum from the system. We observe and analyze these intricate dynamics both for the mean-field condensed and the many-body fragmented systems. The dynamical evolution of the condensed system and the fragmented system exhibits similarities in several observables during small rotation quenches. However, these similarities diverge notably for larger quenches. Additionally, we investigate the formation and the impact of the vortices on the angular momentum dynamics of the evolving split density. All in all, our findings offer valuable insights into the dynamics of trapped interacting bosons under different rotation quenches.
We study analytically and numerically the nonlinear collective dynamics of quasi-one-dimensional spin–orbit coupled spin-1 Bose–Einstein condensates trapped in harmonic potential. The ground state of the system is determined by minimizing the Lagrange density, and the coupled equations of motions for the center-of-mass coordinate of the condensate and its width are derived. Then, two low energy excitation modes in breathing dynamics and dipole dynamics are obtained analytically, and the mechanism of exciting the anharmonic collective dynamics is revealed explicitly. The coupling among spin–orbit coupling, Raman coupling and spin-dependent interaction results in multiple external collective modes, which leads to the anharmonic collective dynamics. The cooperative effect of spin momentum locking and spin-dependent interaction results in coupling of dipolar and breathing dynamics, which strongly depends on spin-dependent interaction and behaves distinct characters in different phases. Interestingly, in the absence of spin-dependent interaction, the breathing dynamics is decoupled from spin dynamics and the breathing dynamics is harmonic. Our results provide theoretical evidence for deep understanding of the ground sate phase transition and the nonlinear collective dynamics of the system.
We investigate the dynamics of rotating spin-orbit-coupled spin-1 Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) in an in-plane gradient magnetic field, which is confined in an anharmonic trap. In the case of rotating spin-orbit-coupled spin-1 BECs with given parameters, the system evolves from initial disk-shaped condensates into drastic turbulent oscillations and ghost vortices on the surface of the component densities due to surface wave excitations and then into two final vortex necklaces along the azimuthal direction with an irregular density hole, in which the vortices differ by one quantum number in turn. For the case of rotating spin-orbit-coupled spin-1 BECs with in-plane gradient magnetic field, with the dynamic evolution, the system undergoes a transition from an initial central polar-core vortex to violent turbulent oscillations and then to a final vortex chain along the diagonal of BECs, with the remaining vortices symmetrically distributed on both sides in the individual component. In addition, the corresponding spin texture undergoes a transition from plane-wave phase to double half-antiskyrmion necklaces for the former case and a transition from a structure similar to a quadrupole magnetic field to a half-antiskyrmion chain with the rest of the half-antiskyrmions on both sides. During the dynamic evolution process, the angular momentum increases gradually and then approaches a convergent value.
When rotating classical fluid drops merge together, angular momentum can be advected from one to another due to the viscous shear flow at the drop interface. It remains elusive what the corresponding mechanism is in inviscid quantum fluids such as Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs). Here we report our theoretical study of an initially static BEC merging with a rotating BEC in three-dimensional space along the rotational axis. We show that a soliton sheet resembling a "corkscrew" spontaneously emerges at the interface. Rapid angular momentum transfer at a constant rate universally proportional to the initial angular momentum density is observed. Strikingly, this transfer does not necessarily involve fluid advection or drifting of the quantized vortices. We reveal that the solitonic corkscrew can exert a torque that directly creates angular momentum in the static BEC and annihilates angular momentum in the rotating BEC. Uncovering this intriguing angular momentum transport mechanism may benefit our understanding of various coherent matter-wave systems, spanning from atomtronics on chips to dark matter BECs at cosmic scales.
In this review, we give an overview of the experimental and theoretical advances in the physics of quantized vortices in dilute atomic-gas Bose--Einstein condensates in a trapping potential, especially focusing on experimental research activities and their theoretical interpretations. Making good use of the atom optical technique, the experiments have revealed many novel structural and dynamic properties of quantized vortices by directly visualizing vortex cores from an image of the density profiles. These results lead to a deep understanding of superfluid hydrodynamics of such systems. Typically, vortices are stabilized by a rotating potential created by a laser beam, magnetic field, and thermal gas. Finite size effects and inhomogeneity of the system, originating from the confinement by the trapping potential, yield unique vortex dynamics coupled with the collective excitations of the condensate. Measuring the frequencies of the collective modes is an accurate tool for clarifying the character of the vortex state. The topics included in this review are the mechanism of vortex formation, equilibrium properties, and dynamics of a single vortex and those of a vortex lattice in a rapidly rotating condensate.