We review some recent results on discrete symmetries and topological order in spinor Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) of 23Na. For spin one bosons with two-body scatterings dominated by a total spin equal to two channel, the BECs are in quantum spin nematic states at a low density limit. We study spin correlations in condensates at different limits and analyze hidden symmetries using a non-perturbative approach developed recently. Furthermore we investigate the influence of hidden Z2 symmetries and U(1) quantum orders in symmetry partially restored states, particularly the effects on topological excitations.
We review some recent results on discrete symmetries and topological order in spinor Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) of 23Na. For spin one bosons with two-body scatterings dominated by a total spin equal to two channel, the BECs are in quantum spin nematic states at a low density limit. We study spin correlations in condensates at different limits and analyze hidden symmetries using a non-perturbative approach developed recently. Furthermore we investigate the influence of hidden Z2 symmetries and U(1) quantum orders in symmetry partially restored states, particularly the effects on topological excitations.
We study spin correlations in Bose-Einstein condensates of spin 1 bosons with scatterings dominated by a total spin equal 2 channel. We show that the low energy spin dynamics in the system can be mapped into an o(n) nonlinear sigma model. n=3 at the zero magnetic field limit and n=2 in the presence of weak magnetic fields. In an ordered phase, the ground state has a discrete Z2 symmetry and is degenerate under the group $[U(1)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{S}^{n\ensuremath{-}1}]{/Z}_{2}$. We explore consequences of the discrete symmetry and propose some measurements to probe it.
We consider many-body states of bosonic spinor atoms which, at the mean-field level, can be characterized by a single-particle wave function for the Bose-Einstein condensation and Mott insulating states. We describe and apply a classification scheme that makes explicit the spin symmetries of such states and enables one to naturally analyze their collective modes and topological excitations. Quite generally, the method allows classification of a spin F system as a polyhedron with 2F vertices. We apply the method to the many-body states of bosons with spins two and three. For spin-two atoms we find the ferromagnetic state, a continuum of nematic states, and a state having the symmetry of the point group of the regular tetrahedron. For spin-three atoms we obtain similar ferromagnetic and nematic phases as well as states having symmetries of various types of polyhedra with six vertices.
Hidden topological order in 23Na(F=1) Bose-Einstein Condensates
We show the existence of a new hidden topological order in 23Na (F=1) Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) with antiferromagnetic interactions. Occurrence of this order is due to the confinement of hedgehogs in BEC where a spin Josephson effect takes place. However, a topological long range order is also argued to coexist with a short range spin correlation, as a result of topological order from disorder.
In this thesis we study the nonlinear dynamics of spin-1 and spin-2 Bose-Einstein condensates, with particular application to antiferromagnetic systems exhibiting nematic (beyond magnetic) order. Firstly, we give a derivation of the spinor energy functionals with a focus on the connections between the nonlinear terms. We derive a hierarchy of nonlinear irreducible multipole observables sensitive to different levels of nematic order, and explore the various nematic states in terms of their multipolar order, representations of their symmetries, and topological defects.\n\nWe then develop an exact solution to the nonlinear dynamics of spinor Bose-Einstein condensates. We use this solution to construct efficient and accurate numerical algorithms to evolve the spinor Gross-Pitaevskii equation in time. We demonstrate the advantages of our algorithms with several 1D numerical test problems, comparing with existing methods in the literature.\n\nWe apply our numerical methods to simulating quenches of the condensate between various antiferromagnetic phases for spin-1 and spin-2. For spin-1, we carry out quenches for a theoretical uniform system in 2D, and then specialize to the parameters used in a recent harmonically trapped experiment in 3D. We connect the long-time coarsening growth law of the relevant order parameter to the decay of half-quantum vortices, which are the relevant topological defects of the ground state.\n\nFor the spin-2 system, we investigate a novel quench from two different quadrupolar-nematic phases to an octupolar-nematic “cyclic” phase which supports 1/3 fractional vortices. We develop appropriate order parameter observables which couple to the spin and superfluid currents generated by these defects, and show that a new growth law appears with exponent 1/3.
Due to the coexistence of phase coherence and magnetic order, Bose-Einstein condensates with internal degrees of freedom, i.e., spinor BECs, are considered to serve as an ideal table-top playground for the studies of various phenomena in different fields of physics.They have been widely used in studying spin textures and topological defects, coherent spin dynamics, quantum symmetry breaking, quantum phase transitions, etc.However, the theoretical framework used in these works is based on the mean-field theory in which the effects of quantum fluctuations are ignored.Despite the success of the mean-field theory in the description of spinor BECs, there are particular features whose account must rely on a beyond-mean-field theory as the effects of quantum fluctuations become significant.In this thesis, we develop the Beliaev theory, which is a Green's function approach beyond the Bogoliubov theory, for spinor BECs to study the effects of quantum fluctuations on the condensates' phase structures, elementary excitations, stabilities, and phase transitions.First, we point out that the Bogoliubov theory fails to capture the metastable states associated with first-order quantum phase transitions in spin-2 BECs.In fact, we show that these metastable states are induced by quantum fluctuations, and only by going to the next-order approximation, i.e., the Beliaev theory, can we show that they indeed appear around the phase boundaries.Besides the fluctuation-induced metastability, we find another important class of first-order quantum phase transitions in both spin-1 and spin-2 BECs.In this class, there is no metastable state to all orders of approximation since it is prohibited by a high symmetry of the Hamiltonian at the phase boundary, resulting in a characteristic flat energy landscape.Despite being first-order phase transitions, the flat energy landscape leads to the criticality in the dynamics of the condensate through these transitions in a manner similar to second-order phase transitions.Second, we succeed in deriving the analytic expression for the energy gap of the so-called quasi-Nambu-Goldstone (quasi-NG) modes, which are excitations not generated by spontaneous symmetry breaking, in the nematic phase of spin-2 BECs.Although quasi-NG modes are gapless at the mean-field level, we prove that with quantum corrections they acquire a nonzero energy gap.From the obtained magnitude of the energy gap, we can evaluate the critical temperature above which a topological defect such as a vortex of spin nematicity would decay by emitting thermally excited quasi-NG modes.We also study how the propagation of quasi-NG modes in space is affected by the particle-number density fluctuations of the condensate.Third, we calculate the damping rates of various types of quasiparticles in a spin-2 BEC including phonons, magnons, and quasi-NG modes.They actually have finite lifetime and decay via numerous channels of collision with the condensate atoms.Using either the Fermi's golden rule or the spinor Beliaev theory, we obtain the analytic expressions for the damping rates of phonons and magnons, from which the power-law dependence of the damping rates on the momentum is deduced.In contrast, the damping of quasi-NG modes is suppressed due to the energy conservation.
Large spin systems can exhibit unconventional types of magnetic ordering, different from the ferromagnetic or N\'eel-like antiferromagnetic order commonly found in spin 1/2 systems. Spin-nematic phases, for instance, do not break time-reversal invariance, and their magnetic order parameter is characterized by a second-rank tensor with the symmetry of an ellipsoid. Here we show direct experimental evidence of spin-nematic ordering in a spin 1 Bose-Einstein condensate of sodium atoms with antiferromagnetic interactions. In a mean field description this order is enforced by locking the relative phase between spin components. We reveal this mechanism by studying the spin noise after a spin rotation, which is shown to contain information hidden when looking only at averages. The method should be applicable to high-spin systems in order to reveal complex magnetic phases.