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Poincar\'e index formula, vortices and superflow saddle points in a non-rotating cold atom Bose-Einstein condensate

Julien Garaud, Antti J. Niemi

Published Aug 6, 2021• 0 citations
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Abstract

A dilute gas of Bose-Einstein condensed atoms, in a non-rotating and axially symmetric harmonic trap, can be modeled by the time dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The minimum energy solutions describe vortices that propagate around the trap center. The number of vortices increases with increasing angular momentum, and the vortices repel each other to form Abrikosov lattices. Besides vortices there are also saddle points, where the velocities of the superflow of distinct vortices cancel each other. The Poincare index formula states that the difference in the number vortices and saddles points can never change. When the number of saddle points is small, they aggregate and form degenerate propagating structures. However, when their number becomes sufficiently large there is a transition and the saddle points start dispersing. They pair up with vortices and propagate around the trap center in regular arrangements akin Abrikosov lattices.

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A dilute gas of Bose-Einstein condensed atoms, in a non-rotating and axially symmetric harmonic trap, can be modeled by the time dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The minimum energy solutions describe vortices that propagate around the trap center. The number of vortices increases with increasing angular momentum, and the vortices repel each other to form Abrikosov lattices. Besides vortices there are also saddle points, where the velocities of the superflow of distinct vortices cancel each other. The Poincare index formula states that the difference in the number vortices and saddles points can never change. When the number of saddle points is small, they aggregate and form degenerate propagating structures. However, when their number becomes sufficiently large there is a transition and the saddle points start dispersing. They pair up with vortices and propagate around the trap center in regular arrangements akin Abrikosov lattices.
Abstract A dilute gas of Bose-Einstein condensed atoms in a non-rotated and axially symmetric harmonic trap is modelled by the time dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation. When the angular momentum carried by the condensate does not vanish, the minimum energy state describes vortices (or antivortices) that propagate around the trap center. The number of (anti)vortices increases with the angular momentum, and they repel each other to form Abrikosov lattices. Besides vortices and antivortices there are also stagnation points where the superflow vanishes; to our knowledge the stagnation points have not been analyzed previously, in the context of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The Poincaré index formula states that the difference in the number of vortices and stagnation points can never change. When the number of stagnation points is small, they tend to aggregate into degenerate propagating structures. But when the number becomes sufficiently large, the stagnation points tend to pair up with the vortex cores, to propagate around the trap center in regular lattice arrangements. There is an analogy with the geometry of the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition, with the angular momentum of the condensate as the external control parameter instead of the temperature.
Abstract Vortices in a Bose-Einstein condensate are modelled as spontaneously symmetry breaking minimum energy solutions of the time dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation, using the method of constrained optimization. In a non-rotating axially symmetric trap, the core of a single vortex precesses around the trap center and, at the same time, the phase of its wave function shifts at a constant rate. The precession velocity, the speed of phase shift, and the distance between the vortex core and the trap center, depend continuously on the value of the conserved angular momentum that is carried by the entire condensate. In the case of a symmetric pair of identical vortices, the precession engages an emergent gauge field in their relative coordinate, with a flux that is equal to the ratio between the precession and shift velocities.
We study the vortex lattices in a Bose-Einstein condensate in a rotating anisotropic harmonic trap. We first investigate the single-particle wave functions obtained by the exact solution of the problem and give simple expressions for these wave functions in the small anisotropy limit. Depending on the strength of the interactions, a few or a large number of vortices can be formed. In the limit of many vortices, we calculate the density profile of the cloud and show that the vortex lattice stays triangular. We also find that the vortex lattice planes align themselves with the weak axis of the external potential. For a small number of vortices, we numerically solve the Gross-Pitaevskii equation and find vortex configurations that are very different from the vortex configurations in an axisymmetric rotating trap.
Vortex states of weakly interacting Bose-Einstein condensates confined in three-dimensional rotating harmonic traps are investigated numerically at zero temperature. The ground state in the rotating frame is obtained by propagating the Gross-Pitaevskii equation for the condensate in imaginary time. The total energies between states with and without a vortex are compared, yielding critical rotation frequencies that depend on the anisotropy of the trap and the number of atoms. Vortices displaced from the center of nonrotating traps are found to have long lifetimes for sufficiently large numbers of atoms. The relationship between vortex stability and bound core states is explored.
Vortices in a cold alkali atom Bose-Einstein condensate can be modelled as minimum energy solutions of the time dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation. In a non-rotating axially symmetric trap, the core of a single vortex precesses around the trap center and, at the same time, the phase of its wave function shifts at a constant rate. The precession velocity, the speed of phase shift, and the distance between the vortex core and the trap center, depend continuously on the value of the conserved angular momentum that is carried by the entire condensate. The precessing vortex is an example of an autonomous Hamiltonian time crystal. In the case of a symmetric pair of identical vortices, the precession engages an emergent gauge field akin to the anyon gauge field, with a statistical parameter equal to the ratio between the precession and shift velocities.
One of the key issues related to superfluidity is the existence of quantized vortices. Following recent experiments on Bose–Einstein condensates exhibiting vortices, we investigate the behavior of the wave function which solves the Gross–Pitaevskii equation. For a rotating Bose–Einstein condensate in a harmonic trap, we give a simplified expression of the Gross–Pitaevskii energy in the Thomas–Fermi regime, which only depends on the number and shape of the vortex lines. This allows us to study in detail the structure of the line of a single quantized vortex, which has a U or S shape. S type vortices exist for all values of the angular velocity Ω but are not minimizers of the energy while U vortices are minimizers and exist only for Ω sufficiently large. Finally, we study the drag created by the movement of a detuned laser beam in a condensate and the nucleation of vortices in the low density region close to the boundary layer of the cloud.