We investigate vortex solitons in models representing “pancake-shaped” Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) with attractive interatomic interactions and an anisotropic harmonic trapping potential, or polarization-preserving waveguides, such as a photonic-crystal or radial-bandgap fiber with an elliptically deformed core. Elliptic-vortex states bifurcate from dipole modes. In spite of strongly asymmetric shapes, the elliptic vortices with topological charge 1 are stable in a wide region in their existence domain. The dependence of the stability region on the eccentricity of the elliptic trap is reported. Input circular wave functions with embedded vorticity slowly relax into stationary elliptic vortices, featuring persistent rotation in the course of the evolution. All higher-order vortices are unstable.
We investigate vortex solitons in models representing “pancake-shaped” Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) with attractive interatomic interactions and an anisotropic harmonic trapping potential, or polarization-preserving waveguides, such as a photonic-crystal or radial-bandgap fiber with an elliptically deformed core. Elliptic-vortex states bifurcate from dipole modes. In spite of strongly asymmetric shapes, the elliptic vortices with topological charge 1 are stable in a wide region in their existence domain. The dependence of the stability region on the eccentricity of the elliptic trap is reported. Input circular wave functions with embedded vorticity slowly relax into stationary elliptic vortices, featuring persistent rotation in the course of the evolution. All higher-order vortices are unstable.
We predict the existence of stable fundamental and vortical bright solitons in dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) with repulsive dipole-dipole interactions (DDI). The condensate is trapped in the 2D plane with the help of the repulsive contact interactions whose local strength grows ∼r4 from the center to periphery, while dipoles are oriented perpendicular to the self-trapping plane. The confinement in the perpendicular direction is provided by the usual harmonic-oscillator potential. The objective is to extend the recently induced concept of the self-trapping of bright solitons and solitary vortices in the pseudopotential, which is induced by the repulsive local nonlinearity with the strength growing from the center to periphery, to the case when the trapping mechanism competes with the long-range repulsive DDI. Another objective is to extend the analysis for elliptic vortices and solitons in an anisotropic nonlinear pseudopotential. Using the variational approximation (VA) and numerical simulations, we construct families of self-trapped modes with vorticities ℓ=0 (fundamental solitons), ℓ=1, and ℓ=2. The fundamental solitons and vortices with ℓ=1 exist up to respective critical values of the eccentricity of the anisotropic pseudopotential, being stable in the entire existence regions. The vortices with ℓ=2 are stable solely in the isotropic model.
We analyse the existence, stability and dynamics of localized discrete modes with intrinsic vorticity S = 1 and S = 2 in the disc-shaped dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate loaded into a deep two-dimensional optical lattice. The condensate, which features the interplay of local contact and nonlocal dipole-dipole (DD) interactions between atoms, is modelled by the 2D discrete Gross-Pitaevskii equation which includes the long-range DD term. Various species of discrete vortex solitons, which are known in the model of the condensate with local interactions, are found to exist in the presence of the DD interaction too. In locally self-attractive condensates, the isotropic DD repulsion, which corresponds to the orientation of atomic dipoles perpendicular to the confinement plane, helps to extend the region of the vortex stability, while in the case of anisotropic DD interactions, corresponding to the in-plane orientation of the dipoles, vortices are unstable. In the former case, those vortices which are unstable may evolve into robust ring-shaped breathers. The attractive isotropic DD interaction can create localized vortices in the condensate with the local self-repulsion, but they all are unstable, evolving into single-peak asymmetric structures.
We report on results of a systematic analysis of two-dimensional solitons and localized vortices in models including a rotating periodic potential and the cubic nonlinearity, with the latter being both self-attractive and self-repulsive. The models apply to Bose-Einstein condensates stirred by rotating optical lattices and to twisted photonic-crystal fibers, or bundled arrays of waveguides, in nonlinear optics. In the case of the attractive nonlinearity, we construct compound states in the form of vortices, quadrupoles, and supervortices, all trapped in the slowly rotating lattice, and identify their stability limits (fundamental solitons in this setting were studied previously). In rapidly rotating potentials, vortices decouple from the lattice in the azimuthal direction and assume an annular shape. In the model with the repulsive nonlinearity, which was not previously explored in this setting, gap solitons and vortices are found in both cases of the slow and rapid rotations. It is again concluded that the increase in the rotation frequency leads to the transition from fully trapped corotating vortices to ring-shaped ones. We also study ``crater-shaped'' vortices in the attraction model, which, unlike their compound counterparts, are trapped, essentially, in one cell of the lattice. Previously, only unstable vortices of this type were reported. We demonstrate that they have a certain stability region. Solitons and vortices are found here in the numerical form, and, in parallel, by means of the variational approximation.
Abstract We study three-dimensional vortex lattice structures in purely dipolar Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC). By using the mean-field approximation, we obtain a stability diagram for the vortex states in purely dipolar BECs as a function of harmonic trap aspect ratio ( λ ) and dipole–dipole interaction strength ( D ) under rotation. Rotating the condensate within the unstable region leads to collapse while in the stable region furnishes stable vortex lattices of dipolar BECs. We analyse stable vortex lattice structures by solving the three-dimensional time-dependent Gross–Pitaevskii equation in imaginary time. Further, the stability of vortex states is examined by evolution in real-time. We also investigate the distribution of vortices in a fully anisotropic trap by increasing eccentricity of the external trapping potential. We observe the breaking up of the condensate in two parts with an equal number of vortices on each when the trap is sufficiently weak, and the rotation frequency is high.
We study stationary clusters of vortices and antivortices in dilute pancake-shaped Bose-Einstein condensates confined in nonrotating harmonic traps. Previous theoretical results on the stability properties of these topologically nontrivial excited states are seemingly contradicting. We clarify this situation by a systematic stability analysis. The energetic and dynamic stability of the clusters is determined from the corresponding elementary excitation spectra obtained by solving the Bogoliubov equations. Furthermore, we study the temporal evolution of the dynamically unstable clusters. The stability of the clusters and the characteristics of their destabilizing modes only depend on the effective strength of the interactions between particles and the trap anisotropy. For certain values of these parameters, there exist several dynamical instabilities, but we show that there are also regions in which some of the clusters are dynamically stable. Moreover, we observe that the dynamical instability of the clusters does not always imply their structural instability, and that for some dynamically unstable states annihilation of the vortices is followed by their regeneration, and revival of the cluster.
We perform accurate investigation of stability of localized vortices in an effectively two-dimensional (``pancake-shaped'') trapped Bose-Einstein condensate with negative scattering length. The analysis combines computation of the stability eigenvalues and direct simulations. The states with vorticity S=1 are stable in a third of their existence region, 0<N<(1∕3)Nmax(S=1), where N is the number of atoms, and Nmax(S=1) is the corresponding collapse threshold. Stable vortices easily self-trap from arbitrary initial configurations with embedded vorticity. In an adjacent interval, (1∕3)Nmax(S=1)<N<0.43Nmax(S=1), the unstable vortex periodically splits in twofragments and recombines. At N>0.43Nmax(S=1), the fragments do not recombine, as each one collapses by itself. The results are compared with those in the full three-dimensional (3D) Gross-Pitaevskii equation. In a moderately anisotropic 3D configuration, with the aspect ratio 10, the stability interval of the S=1 vortices occupies $\ensuremath{\approx}40%$ of their existence region, hence the two-dimensional (2D) limit provides for a reasonable approximation in this case. For the isotropic 3D configuration, the stability interval expands to 65% of the existence domain. Overall, the vorticity heightens the actual collapse threshold by a factor of up to 2. All vortices with $S\ensuremath{\geqslant}2$ are unstable.