We study the properties of Bose–Einstein condensates under a non-Hermitian spin–orbit coupling (SOC), induced by a dissipative two-photon Raman process. We focus on the dynamics of the condensate at short times, when the impact of decoherence induced by quantum jumps is negligible and the dynamics is coherently driven by a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian. Given the significantly modified single-particle physics by dissipative SOC, the interplay of non-Hermiticity and interaction leads to a quasi-steady-state phase diagram different from its Hermitian counterpart. In particular, we find that dissipation can induce a phase transition from the stripe phase to the plane-wave phase. We further map out the phase diagram with respect to the dissipation and interaction strengths, and finally investigate the stability of quasi-steady states through the time-dependent dissipative Gross–Pitaevskii equation. Our results are readily accessible based on standard experiments with synthetic spin–orbit couplings.
We study the properties of Bose–Einstein condensates under a non-Hermitian spin–orbit coupling (SOC), induced by a dissipative two-photon Raman process. We focus on the dynamics of the condensate at short times, when the impact of decoherence induced by quantum jumps is negligible and the dynamics is coherently driven by a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian. Given the significantly modified single-particle physics by dissipative SOC, the interplay of non-Hermiticity and interaction leads to a quasi-steady-state phase diagram different from its Hermitian counterpart. In particular, we find that dissipation can induce a phase transition from the stripe phase to the plane-wave phase. We further map out the phase diagram with respect to the dissipation and interaction strengths, and finally investigate the stability of quasi-steady states through the time-dependent dissipative Gross–Pitaevskii equation. Our results are readily accessible based on standard experiments with synthetic spin–orbit couplings.
These lecture notes provide an introduction to Bose-Einstein condensates with Raman-induced spin-orbit coupling. Owing to the interplay between the peculiar single-particle dispersion, featuring a double-minimum structure, and the two-body interaction, these systems possess a complex phase diagram. Three different quantum phases can be observed, i.e., a stripe, a plane-wave, and a single-minimum phase, each characterized by different broken symmetries. The condensate dynamics is also significantly affected by the spin-orbit coupling, as revealed by the behavior of the Bogoliubov spectrum in infinite systems and the behavior of the discretized collective mode frequencies in trapped configurations, especially close to the phase transitions. In turn, the superfluid and rotational properties are also deeply modified by the coupling between the motional and spin degree of freedom. Finally, a special attention is devoted to the stripe phase and its supersolid character, which can be clearly revealed by the study of its dynamic features.
Spin-orbit coupling (SOC), the interaction between the spin and momentum of a quantum particle, is crucial for many important condensed matter phenomena. The recent experimental realization of SOC in neutral bosonic cold atoms provides a new and ideal platform for investigating spin-orbit coupled quantum many-body physics. In this Letter, we derive a generic Gross-Pitaevskii equation as the starting point for the study of many-body dynamics in spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensates. We show that different laser setups for realizing the same SOC may lead to different mean-field dynamics. Various ground state phases (stripe, phase separation, etc.) of the condensate are found in different parameter regions. A new oscillation period induced by the SOC, similar to the Zitterbewegung oscillation, is found in the center-of-mass motion of the condensate.
Abstract Parity-time ( P T ) symmetry has drawn great research interest in non-Hermitian physics. Recently, there is an emerging model of P T -symmetric spin–orbit coupling (SOC) which could be realized with spin-1/2 atomic Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) when the two spin components are respectively subjected to momentum-dependent gain and loss (Qin et al 2022 New J. Phys. 24 063025). In this model, inter-atom interaction has no influence on the P T -symmetric plane waves. Thus, collective excitation playing the role of fingerprint of inter-atom interaction is investigated in this paper. For the phonon excitation, it is shown that the repulsive interaction between atoms in different spin states, which tends to drive the atoms to populate in only one spin component, can break the P T -symmetry, and leads to a phonon instability. Whereas, for the case of the phonon-maxon-roton collective excitation spectrum, the repulsive interaction between atoms in different spin states can lead to a maxon instability, which does not occur in Hermitian BEC systems (dipolar BECs or BECs with Raman induced SOC). Simulation of the time evolution of the plane wave solution against small noise shows that the maxon instability can result in the formation of a supersolid-like stripe pattern at the initial stage, but the non-Hermitian nature of the system finally destroys the pattern. The phase diagram of stability shows that the Rabi coupling and repulsive interaction between the atoms in the same spin state can stabilize the system.
We consider a spin-1 ferromagnetic Bose–Einstein condensate with Rashba spin–orbit coupling (SOC) and dipole–dipole interaction (DDI) in a double-well potential. For the nonrotating case, the ground state of the system is obtained by using the imaginary time propagation method, and a ground-state phase diagram is given with respect to the SOC strength and the DDI strength. It is shown that the nonrotating system sustains rich exotic ground-state phases including the ox-horn phase with hidden vortices and antivortices, density droplet phase with vortex–antivortex pairs, modulated stripe phase with vortex–antivortex chains, checkerboard phase with visible vortex–antivortex chains and hidden vortex–antivortex pairs, and the triangular vortex–antivortex lattice phase. For the rotating case, the dynamics of the system is investigated by using a phenomenological dissipation model. The effects of SOC, DDI and rotation on the unique dynamic behaviors of the rotating system and the final steady-state structures are revealed and analyzed. In particular, the rotating system supports fascinating novel spin textures and skyrmion excitations, and experiences a series of topological structure transitions such as the transitions from an interlaced skyrmion–antiskyrmion lattice pair to a skyrmion–meron lattice pair and then to a meron lattice pair.
Abstract Spin–orbit–coupled Bose–Einstein condensates are a central platform for exploring quantum phase transitions and synthetic quantum matter, yet how entanglement behaves across these transitions remains largely unexplored. We analyze bipartite entanglement between synthetically dressed pseudo–spin states in a cavity–QED environment using a quantum–Langevin approach, where the coupled atom–photon fluctuations are governed by a non-Hermitian drift matrix. Steady-state quantum correlations are quantified through logarithmic negativity and entanglement fidelity. When cavity loss dominates over atomic dissipation, the cavity mediates only dispersive coupling between the pseudo-spins, and the entanglement remains weak and broadly distributed across the transition from the stripe-like mixed state to the plane-wave state. When atomic dissipation becomes the dominant channel, the fluctuation spectrum undergoes a qualitative and topological change: a set of spin-localized, edge-like photonic modes emerges. These non-Hermitian topological edge modes act as spectrally selective pathways that confine cavity-generated fluctuations around the pseudo–spin manifold, enhance their phase-space overlap, and produce sharply bounded regions of strong spin–spin entanglement in the Raman parameter plane. Entanglement fidelity verifies that the enhancement originates from topological edge-mode localization rather than from dissipation itself. Thus, non-Hermitian topological edge physics reorganizes the entanglement landscape across the phase transition of synthetically dressed atomic states, revealing a pathway to edge-mode-enhanced quantum entanglement in hybrid quantum systems.
The experimental realization of emergent spin-orbit coupling through laser-induced Raman transitions in ultracold atoms paves the way for exploring novel superfluid physics and simulating exotic many-body phenomena. A recent proposal with the use of Laguerre-Gaussian lasers enables another fundamental type of coupling between spin and orbital angular momentum (SOAM) in ultracold atoms. We hereby study quantum phases of a realistic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) with this synthetic SOAM coupling in a disk-shaped geometry, respecting radial inhomogeneity of the Raman coupling. We find that the experimental system naturally resides in a strongly interacting regime in which the phase diagram significantly deviates from the single-particle picture. The interplay between SOAM coupling and interaction leads to rich structures in spin-resolved position and momentum distributions, including a stripe phase and various types of immiscible states. Our results would provide a guide for an experimental investigation of SOAM-coupled BECs.