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Chinese Physics B

Manipulating vortices in F = 2 Bose–Einstein condensates through magnetic field and spin–orbit coupling

Hao Zhu, Shougen Yin, Wu-Ming Liu

Published Nov 15, 2021• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Weinvestigate the vortex structures excited by Ioffe–Pritchard magnetic field and Dresselhaus-type spin–orbit coupling in F = 2 ferromagnetic Bose–Einstein condensates. In the weakly interatomic interacting regime, an external magnetic field can generate a polar-core vortex in which the canonical particle current is zero. With the combined effect of spin–orbit coupling and magnetic field, the ground state experiences a transition from polar-core vortex to Mermin–Ho vortex, in which the canonical particle current is anticlockwise. For fixed spin–orbit coupling strengths, the evolution of phase winding, magnetization, and degree of phase separation with magnetic field are studied. Additionally, with further increasing spin–orbit coupling strength, the condensate exhibits symmetrical density domains separated by radial vortex arrays. Our work paves the way to explore exotic topological excitations in high-spin systems.

DOI
10.1088/1674-1056/ac398f

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Weinvestigate the vortex structures excited by Ioffe–Pritchard magnetic field and Dresselhaus-type spin–orbit coupling in F = 2 ferromagnetic Bose–Einstein condensates. In the weakly interatomic interacting regime, an external magnetic field can generate a polar-core vortex in which the canonical particle current is zero. With the combined effect of spin–orbit coupling and magnetic field, the ground state experiences a transition from polar-core vortex to Mermin–Ho vortex, in which the canonical particle current is anticlockwise. For fixed spin–orbit coupling strengths, the evolution of phase winding, magnetization, and degree of phase separation with magnetic field are studied. Additionally, with further increasing spin–orbit coupling strength, the condensate exhibits symmetrical density domains separated by radial vortex arrays. Our work paves the way to explore exotic topological excitations in high-spin systems.
Abstract We investigate the topological excitations of rotating spin-1 ferromagnetic Bose–Einstein condensates with spin–orbit coupling (SOC) in an in-plane quadrupole field. Such a system sustains a rich variety of exotic vortex structures due to the spinor order parameter and the interplay among in-plane quadrupole field, SOC, rotation, and interatomic interaction. For the nonrotating case, with the increase of the quadrupole field strength, the system experiences a transition from a coreless polar-core vortex with a bright soliton to a singular polar-core vortex with a density hole. Without rotation but with a fixed quadrupole field, when the SOC strength increases, the system transforms from a central Mermin–Ho vortex into a criss-crossed vortex–antivortex string lattice. For the rotating case, we give a phase diagram with respect to the quadrupole field strength and the SOC strength. It is shown that the rotating system supports four typical quantum phases: vortex necklace, diagonal vortex chain cluster, single diagonal vortex chain, and few vortex states. Furthermore, the system favors novel spin textures and skyrmion excitations including an antiskyrmion, a criss-crossed half-skyrmion–half-antiskyrmion lattice, a skyrmion-meron necklace, a symmetric half-skyrmion lattice, and an asymmetric skyrmion-meron lattice.
We investigate the combined effects of spin-orbit coupling and rotation on the topological vortical phase transition in F=2F=2F=2 Bose-Einstein condensates. We find that the spin-orbit coupling can precisely manipulate the canonical atom current which is generated in the opposite direction of the gauge atom current and causes both a continuous and a discontinuous canonical angular momentum. We apply the canonical angular momentum and magnetization to reveal the emergence of novel topological excitations, such as the Anderson-Toulouse vortex as well as the vortex--dipole lattice. Especially, strong spin-orbit coupling can induce two perpendicular vortex chains. We also find that both the first-order and the second-order phase transition can be characterized by the canonical angular momentum and the magnetization. Differently from the spin singlet-pairing interaction, the spin-exchange interaction can adjust the canonical angular momentum and control the phase transition well. The topological vortical phase transition in an F=2F=2F=2 cold-atom system is compatible with the current experiment and can be detected by the spin polarization procedure.
Abstract We investigate the ground-state properties of spin–orbit (SO)-coupled Bose–Einstein condensates confined in a spin-dependent asymmetric potential composed of harmonic and quartic contributions. The combined effect of the two potentials gives rise to an effective spatially inhomogeneous Zeeman field along the z -direction, and the complex competition among SO coupling, interatomic interactions, and this effective field leads to the emergence of nontrivial topological phases and complex spin textures in the system. For weak interatomic interactions, as the SO coupling strength increases, the system undergoes a series of transitions between ground-state phases: from a spin-polarized state, to an Anderson–Toulouse (AT) vortex state, a high-order radial dark soliton state, and finally to a domain structure. For strong interatomic interactions, the condensate evolves from a spin-polarized state to an AT vortex state, and then to a spatially coexisting state of AT and Mermin–Ho vortices, which corresponds to a novel topological excitation in pseudospin space: a skyrmion-dominated texture embedded with circular-hyperbolic antimeron pairs, realizing the coexistence and nesting of multiple topological defects. For sufficiently strong SO coupling, both components eventually evolve into similar multiring-shaped higher-order radial dark soliton states, with the number of soliton rings increasing as the SO coupling strength increases. Our results enrich the ground-state phases and topological excitations of cold atomic systems and provide new insights for exploring and manipulating nontrivial topological excitations in such systems.
Magnetic monopoles describe isolated north or south magnetic poles. The practical detection of the free magnetic monopoles, due to their extremely heavy masses, remains challenging so far. However, Bose-Einstein condensates offer an ideal observable platform for probing monopoles. In particular, the recent realization of spin-orbit (SO) coupling, owing to its high controllability and tunability, provides an unprecedented opportunity to explore exotic structures and phase transitions of monopoles unrealizable elsewhere. Here we report Dirac monopoles attached to the polar-core vortex induced by SO coupling in ferromagnetic Bose-Einstein condensates, which can be readily observed via time of flight measurements in experiment. The results show that, a cyclic phase transition from Dirac monopoles with polar-core vortex to that with Mermin-Ho vortex, is induced by SO coupling. Our studies may open a new direction to realize exotic topological defects and phase transitions in quantum systems.
We investigate the anisotropic spin–orbit coupled spin-2 Bose–Einstein condensates with Ioffe–Pritchard magnetic field. With nonzero magnetic field, anisotropic spin–orbit coupling will introduce several vortices and further generate a vortex chain. Inside the vortex chain, the vortices connect to each other, forming a line along the axis. The physical nature of the vortex chain can be explained by the particle current and the momentum distribution. The vortex number inside the vortex chain can be influenced via varying the magnetic field. Through adjusting the anisotropy of the spin–orbit coupling, the direction of the vortex chain is changed, and the vortex lattice can be triggered. Moreover, accompanied by the variation of the atomic interactions, the density and the momentum distribution of the vortex chain are affected. The realization and the detection of the vortex chain are compatible with current experimental techniques.
We report Dirac monopoles with a polar-core vortex induced by spin-orbit coupling in ferromagnetic Bose-Einstein condensates, which are attached to two nodal vortex lines along the vertical axis. These monopoles are more stable in the time scale of experiment and can be detected through directly imaging vortex lines. When the strength of spin-orbit coupling increases, Dirac monopoles with a vortex can be transformed into those with a square lattice. In the presence of spin-orbit coupling, increasing the strength of the interaction can induce a cyclic phase transition from Dirac monopoles with a polar-core vortex to those with a Mermin-Ho vortex. The spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensates not only provide a unique platform for investigating exotic monopoles and relevant phase transitions but also can hold stable monopoles even though a quadrupole field is turned off.