Preparing topological states of a Bose–Einstein condensate

James Edgar Williams

Chandra Raman

Ben Li

Janne Ruostekoski

We propose a method of generating skyrmion vortices in a pair of Bose-Einstein condensates occupying two internal states of the same atom. We show that a variety of different periodic arrays of vortices may be prepared with an appropriate superposition of orthogonal standing electromagnetic waves inducing a coherent coupling between the two condensates.

Nataliia Bazhan, Anton Svetlichnyi, Dominik Pfeiffer +3 more

Coupled coaxially stacked toroidal condensates with persistent currents suggest an appealing physical platform for investigation of various phenomena related to interacting superflows from Josephson effects in the regime of weak interactions to the quantum Kelvin-Helmholtz instability for merging rings. We suggest experimentally accessible methods to prepare states with different topological charges in two coupled coaxial ring-shaped atomic Bose-Einstein condensates. Our results open up the way to direct observation of rotational Josephson vortices in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates.

Nick P. Proukakis