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New Journal of Physics

Phonon and maxon instability in Bose–Einstein condensates with parity-time symmetric spin–orbit coupling

Jieli Qin, Lu Zhou, Guangjiong Dong

Published Dec 1, 2023• 2 citations

Abstract

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.

DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/ad1417

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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.

Abstract We investigate the modulation instability (MI) of plane-wave states in a spin–orbit-coupled spin-1 Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC). The MI of the system can be adjusted by the intensities of the spin–orbit coupling (SOC), Raman coupling and atom–atom interactions. Our analysis shows that the MI of a system without the SOC and Raman coupling mainly occurs for repulsive density–density and spin–exchange interactions due to the combined effects coming from both of them. But when considering the SOC, a multi-peak structure appears in the momentum distribution for the instability, which may be thought of as a precursor to the generation of the stripe-type nonlinear excitations in such systems. The MI becomes more remarkable with increasing intensity of Raman coupling. In addition, the SOC inevitably contributes to the instability for the ternary superfluid regardless of the nature of the density–density and spin–exchange interactions.

The recent experimental realization of spin-orbit (SO) coupling for spin-1 ultracold atoms opens an interesting avenue for exploring SO-coupling-related physics in large-spin systems, which is generally unattainable in electronic materials. In this paper, we study the effects of interactions between atoms on the ground states and collective excitations of SO-coupled spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) in the presence of a spin-tensor potential. We find that ferromagnetic interaction between atoms can induce a stripe phase exhibiting in-phase or out-of-phase modulating patterns between spin-tensor and zero-spin-component density waves. We characterize the phase transitions between different phases using the spin-tensor density as well as the collective dipole motion of the BEC. We show that there exists a double maxon-roton structure in the Bogoliubov-excitation spectrum, attributed to the three band minima of the SO-coupled spin-1 BEC.

We present the collective excitation spectrum analysis of binary Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) with spin-orbit (SO) and Rabi couplings in a quasi-two-dimensional system. In particular, we investigate the role of SO and Rabi coupling strengths in determining the dynamical stability of the coupled BECs using Bogoliubov--de Gennes (BdG) theory. Using the eigenenergy of the BdG spectrum, we confirm the existence of phonon, roton, and maxon modes with weak repulsive intra- and interspecies contact interactions. The depth of the minimum corresponding to the roton mode strongly depends on the coupling strength. We find that the increase of the SO coupling leads to instability, while the increase in the Rabi coupling stabilizes the system. Also, the eigenvectors of the BdG spectrum indicate the presence of a densitylike mode in the stable regime and spinlike modes in the unstable regimes. A phase diagram demonstrating the stability regime in the plane of SO and Rabi coupling strengths is obtained. Finally, we complement the observation of the excitation spectrum with the direct numerical simulation results of coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations.

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.

Roton-type excitations usually emerge from strong correlations or long-range interactions, as in superfluid helium or dipolar ultracold atoms. However, in a weakly short-range interacting quantum gas, the recently synthesized spin-orbit (SO) coupling can lead to various unconventional phases of superfluidity and give rise to an excitation spectrum of roton-maxon character. Using Bragg spectroscopy, we study a SO-coupled Bose-Einstein condensate of ^{87}Rb atoms and show that the excitation spectrum in a "magnetized" phase clearly possesses a two-branch and roton-maxon structure. As Raman coupling strength Ω is decreased, a roton-mode softening is observed, as a precursor of the phase transition to a stripe phase that spontaneously breaks spatially translational symmetry. The measured roton gaps agree well with theoretical calculations. Furthermore, we determine sound velocities both in the magnetized and in the nonmagnetized phases, and a phonon-mode softening is observed around the phase transition in between. The validity of the f-sum rule is examined.

We study the ground-state phase diagram and the quantum phase transitions in spin-1 Bose gases with Raman-induced spin-orbit coupling. In addition to the Bose-Einstein condensates with uniform density, three types of stripe condensation phases that simultaneously break the U(1) symmetry and the translation symmetry are identified. The transitions between these phases are investigated, and the occurrences of the various tricritical points are predicted. The excitation spectra in the plane-wave phase and the zero-momentum phase show rich roton-maxon structures, and their instabilities indicate the tendency to develop the crystalline order. We propose the atomic gas of

^{23}\mathrm{Na}

could be a candidate for observing the stripe condensate with high contrast fringes.