Spinor Condensates on a Cylindrical Surface in Synthetic Gauge Fields
Tin-Lun Ho, Biao Huang
We show that by modifying the setup of the recent experiment that creates a "Dirac string" one can engineer a quasi-2D spinor Bose-Einstein condensate on a cylindrical surface, with a synthetic magnetic field normal to the surface. Because of the muticonnectivity of the surface, there are two types of vortices (called A and B) with the same vorticity. This is very different from the planar case, which only has one kind of vortex for fixed circulation. As the strength of the synthetic gauge field increases, the ground states will form a necklace of alternating AB vortices surrounding the lateral midpoint of the cylinder, and will split into two A and B necklaces at higher synthetic gauge fields. The fact that even the basic vortex structure of a Bose-Einstein condensate is altered in a cylindrical surface implies that richer phenomena are in store for quantum gases in other curved surfaces.
arXiv:1503.00300•Physical Review Letters•Oct 9, 2015•23 citations