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Physical review. E

Rayleigh-Taylor instability and vortex rings in coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations

Hidetsugu Sakaguchi, Hiroomi Chono

Published Nov 28, 2017• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The Rayleigh-Taylor instability is a gravitational instability in two fluids where the heavier fluid is set over the lighter fluid. The instability occurs both in classical fluids and quantum fluids. We numerically study the Rayleigh-Taylor instability using coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations for two-component Bose-Einstein condensates. We carry out numerical simulations that the heavier component is set in a torus initially which is surrounded by the lighter component. When the torus falls, the Rayleigh-Taylor instability develops and a sagging pattern appears. This instability is investigated for the two cases with and without a vortex ring inside the torus. We find that a vortex ring suppresses the instability when the radius of the torus is small.

DOI
10.1103/physreve.96.052222

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The Rayleigh-Taylor instability is a gravitational instability in two fluids where the heavier fluid is set over the lighter fluid. The instability occurs both in classical fluids and quantum fluids. We numerically study the Rayleigh-Taylor instability using coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations for two-component Bose-Einstein condensates. We carry out numerical simulations that the heavier component is set in a torus initially which is surrounded by the lighter component. When the torus falls, the Rayleigh-Taylor instability develops and a sagging pattern appears. This instability is investigated for the two cases with and without a vortex ring inside the torus. We find that a vortex ring suppresses the instability when the radius of the torus is small.
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Instabilities of vortex-ring-bright coherent structures in harmonically trapped two-component three-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates are studied numerically within the coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations and interpreted analytically. Interestingly, the filled vortex core with a sufficiently large amount of the bright component is observed to reduce the parametric interval of stability of the vortex ring. We have identified the mechanisms of several linear instabilities and one nonlinear parametric instability in this connection. Two of the linear instabilities are qualitatively different from ones reported earlier and are associated with azimuthal modes of m=0m=0m=0 and m=1m=1m=1, i.e., deviations of the vortex from the stationary ring shape. Our nonlinear parametric resonance instability occurs between the m=0m=0m=0 and m=2m=2m=2 modes and signals the exchange of energy between them.
Three-component Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) offer a rich platform for exploring inquisitive quantum phenomena. We investigate the Rayleigh-Taylor instability at the two interfaces in a phase-separated three-component BEC in the mean-field framework. The instability in the system can be instigated in various ways owing to the versatility of the three-component system and the subsequent dynamics for certain cases has been studied in detail. We also study the impact of immiscibility of the intermediate component on the onset of instability in the system. The rotational symmetry of the system breaks when the atom-atom interaction is tuned in such a way that the interface between the components becomes unstable giving rise to nonlinear patterns of mushroom shapes which grow exponentially with time. We identify these nonlinear patterns as the solutions of the angular Mathieu equation, representing the normal modes.
Summary form only given. I present results of the detailed asymptotic and numerical results on stability of unit and higher order vortices in coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations, which model the experimental work. Low lying eigenfrequencies, including ones generating instability of the unit vortex placed in one component of a binary mixture of BEC, have been calculated applying perturbative theory in the limit of the weak interparticle interaction. Results of the perturbative theory have been verified and significantly extended using numerical analysis of the linearised equations for excitations and direct numerical simulation of the coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations. Two main instability mechanisms have been identified and their dependencies on the relative number of the particles in the condensates and on the strength of the inter-species interaction have been studied. The first mechanism is the drift instability induced by the vortex free component of the condensate and resulting in the motion of the vortex out of the condensate center to its periphery. The second mechanism is the splitting of the higher order vortices into unit ones. Absolute and/or relative increase of the number of particles in the vortex free condensate component has been found to have stabilizing effect on both drift and splitting instabilities. Different scenarios of the splitting instabilities have been found.