Vortices in spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates

Journal Article · Thu Dec 15 04:00:00 EST 2011 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.84.063604· OSTI ID:22095655

Radic, J.; Sedrakyan, T. A.; Galitski, V. ^[1]; Spielman, I. B. ^[1]

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1. Joint Quantum Institute, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742-4111 (United States)

Realistic methods to create vortices in spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates are discussed. It is shown that, contrary to common intuition, rotation of the trap containing a spin-orbit condensate does not lead to an equilibrium state with static vortex structures but gives rise instead to nonequilibrium behavior described by an intrinsically time-dependent Hamiltonian. We propose here the following alternative methods to induce thermodynamically stable static vortex configurations: (i) to rotate both the lasers and the anisotropic trap and (ii) to impose a synthetic Abelian field on top of synthetic spin-orbit interactions. Effective Hamiltonians for spin-orbit condensates under such perturbations are derived for most currently known realistic laser schemes that induce synthetic spin-orbit couplings. The Gross-Pitaevskii equation is solved for several experimentally relevant regimes. The new interesting effects include spatial separation of left- and right-moving spin-orbit condensates, the appearance of unusual vortex arrangements, and parity effects in vortex nucleation where the topological excitations are predicted to appear in pairs. All these phenomena are shown to be highly nonuniversal and depend strongly on a specific laser scheme and system parameters.

• OSTI ID: 22095655
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 6 Vol. 84; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATION
DISTURBANCES
EXCITATION
HAMILTONIANS
L-S COUPLING
LASER RADIATION
NUCLEATION
ORBITS
PARITY
SPIN
TIME DEPENDENCE
TRAPS
VORTICES
WAVE EQUATIONS