Spinor Bose–Einstein condensates

An overview of the physics of spinor and dipolar Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) is given. Mean-field ground states, Bogoliubov spectra, and many-body ground and excited states of spinor BECs are discussed. Properties of spin-polarized dipolar BECs and those of spinor–dipolar BECs are reviewed. Some of the unique features of the vortices in spinor BECs such as fractional vortices and non-Abelian vortices are delineated. The symmetry of the order parameter is classified using group theory, and various topological excitations are investigated based on homotopy theory. Some of the more recent developments in a spinor BEC are discussed.     

A variational approach to the modulational-oscillatory instability of Bose–Einstein condensates in an optical potential

We use the time-dependent variational approach to demonstrate how the modulational and oscillatory instabilities can be generated in Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) trapped in a periodic optical lattice with weak driving harmonic potential. We derive and analyze the ordinary differential equations for the time evolution of the amplitude and phase of the modulational perturbation, and obtain the instability condition of the condensates through the effective potential. The effect of the optical potential on the dynamics of the BECs is shown. We perform direct numerical simulations to support our theoretical findings, and good agreement is found.     

光晶格中玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚体的自旋和磁研究

近年应用光晶格（optical lattice)控制原子玻色－爱因斯坦凝聚体（BEC）的研究取得了突破性的进展。德国Munich研究小组首次在三维光晶格中观察到了超冷原子从BEC超流状态向Mott insulator状态的量子相变。这样的量子相变现象不仅具有重大的理论研究价值，而且为BEC的实际应用提供了新的途径。文章介绍了作者近来在光晶格中BEC的自旋和磁特性方面的一些研究进展，并探讨了它们在磁传感器及量子计算中的可能应用。     

Classical and quantum regimes of superfluid turbulence

We argue that turbulence in superfluids is governed by two dimensionless parameters. One of them is the intrinsic parameter q which characterizes the friction forces acting on a vortex moving with respect to the heat bath, with q^?1 playing the same role as the Reynolds number Re=UR/ν in classical hydrodynamics. It marks the transition between the “laminar” and turbulent regimes of vortex dynamics. The developed turbulence described by Kolmogorov cascade occurs when Re?1 in classical hydrodynamics, and q?1 in superfluid hydrodynamics. Another parameter of superfluid turbulence is the superfluid Reynolds number Re_s=UR/κ, which contains the circulation quantum κ characterizing quantized vorticity in superfluids. This parameter may regulate the crossover or transition between two classes of superfluid turbulence: (i) the classical regime of Kolmogorov cascade where vortices are locally polarized and the quantization of vorticity is not important; (ii) the quantum Vinen turbulence whose properties are determined by the quantization of vorticity. A phase diagram of the dynamical vortex states is suggested.     

Production of a chromium Bose–Einstein condensate

The recent achievement of Bose–Einstein condensation of chromium atoms [1] has opened longed-for experimental access to a degenerate quantum gas with long-range and anisotropic interaction. Due to the large magnetic moment of chromium atoms of 6 μ_B, in contrast to other Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs), magnetic dipole-dipole interaction plays an important role in a chromium BEC. Many new physical properties of degenerate gases arising from these magnetic forces have been predicted in the past and can now be studied experimentally. Besides these phenomena, the large dipole moment leads to a breakdown of standard methods for the creation of a chromium BEC. Cooling and trapping methods had to be adapted to the special electronic structure of chromium to reach the regime of quantum degeneracy. Some of them apply generally to gases with large dipolar forces. We present here a detailed discussion of the experimental techniques which are used to create a chromium BEC and allow us to produce pure condensates with up to 10⁵ atoms in an optical dipole trap. We also describe the methods used to determine the trapping parameters.     

Excitation picture of an interacting Bose gas

Atomic Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) can be viewed as macroscopic objects where atoms form correlated atom clusters to all orders. Therefore, the presence of a BEC makes the direct use of the cluster-expansion approach–lucrative e.g. in semiconductor quantum optics–inefficient when solving the many-body kinetics of a strongly interacting Bose. An excitation picture is introduced with a nonunitary transformation that describes the system in terms of atom clusters within the normal component alone. The nontrivial properties of this transformation are systematically studied, which yields a cluster-expansion friendly formalism for a strongly interacting Bose gas. Its connections and corrections to the standard Hartree–Fock–Bogoliubov approach are discussed and the role of the order parameter and the Bogoliubov excitations are identified. The resulting interaction effects are shown to visibly modify number fluctuations of the BEC. Even when the BEC has a nearly perfect second-order coherence, the BEC number fluctuations can still resolve interaction-generated non-Poissonian fluctuations.     

Quasi-two-dimensional Bose–Einstein condensates with spatially modulated cubic–quintic nonlinearities

We investigate exact nonlinear matter wave functions with odd and even parities in the framework of quasi-two-dimensional Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) with spatially modulated cubic–quintic nonlinearities and harmonic potential. The existence condition for these exact solutions requires that the minimum energy eigenvalue of the corresponding linear Schrödinger equation with harmonic potential is the cutoff value of the chemical potential λ. The competition between two-body and three-body interactions influences the energy of the localized state. For attractive two-body and three-body interactions, the larger the matter wave order number n, the larger the energy of the corresponding localized state. A linear stability analysis and direct simulations with initial white noise demonstrate that, for the same state (fixed n), increasing the number of atoms can add stability. A quasi-stable ground-state matter wave is also found for repulsive two-body and three-body interactions. We also discuss the experimental realization of these results in future experiments. These results are of particular significance to matter wave management in higher-dimensional BECs.     

Berezinskii–Kosterlitz–Thouless transition in two-dimensional arrays of Josephson coupled Bose–Einstein condensates

We study the phase transition occurring in Bose–Einstein condensates placed in an optical lattice where the system is arranged in a form of a two-dimensional bosonic Josephson junction array. It is shown that the Josephson interaction between adjacent condensates (trapped in the valleys of the periodic lattice potential) can trigger Berezinskii–Kosterlitz–Thouless transition at a finite temperature _TKT$T_{\mathit{KT}}$ to the ordered state composed of bound vortex–antivortex phase-field configurations of individual condensates. Using a lattice model of the bosonic Josephson junction array, we derive the effective phase-only Hamiltonian and calculate the critical temperature _TKT$T_{\mathit{KT}}$. Finally, we discuss the results in the context of system parameters and possible experiments.     

Manipulating nonclassical quantum statistical properties of light field by an f-deformed Bose–Einstein condensate

We consider the interaction between an f-deformed Bose–Einstein condensate and a single-mode quantized light field. By using the Gardiner’s phonon operators, we find that there exists a natural deformation in the model which modifies the Bogoliubov approximation under the condition of large but finite number of particles in condensate. This approach introduces an intrinsically deformed Bose–Einstein condensate, where the deformation parameter, well-defined by the particle number N in condensate, controls the strength of the associated nonlinearity. By introducing the deformed Gardiner’s phonon operators we modify the very dilute-gas approximation through including atomic collisions in condensate. The rate of atomic collisions κ, as a new deformation parameter in the deformed Bose–Einstein condensate, controls the nonlinearity related to the atomic collisions. We show that by controlling the nonlinearities in the f-deformed atomic condensate through the two atomic parameters N and κ, it is possible to generate and manipulate the nonclassical quantum statistical properties of radiation field, such as, the sub-Poissonian photon statistics and quadrature squeezing. Also, it is possible to control the collapses and revivals phenomena in the average number of photons by atomic parameters N and κ.     

Equilibrium vortex lattices of a binary rotating atomic Bose–Einstein condensate with unequal atomic masses

We perform a detailed numerical study of the equilibrium ground-state structures of a binary rotating Bose–Einstein condensate with unequal atomic masses. Our results show that the ground-state distribution and its related vortex configurations are complex events that differ markedly depending strongly on the strength of rotation frequency, as well as on the ratio of atomic masses. We also discuss the structures and radii of the clouds, the number and the size of the core region of the vortices, as a function of the rotation frequency, and of the ratio of atomic masses, and the analytical results agree well with our numerical simulations. This work may open an alternate way in the quantum control of the binary rotating quantum gases with unequal atomic masses.     

Superfluidity and collective modes in Rashba spin–orbit coupled Fermi gases

We present a theoretical study of the superfluidity and the corresponding collective modes in two-component atomic Fermi gases with s$s$-wave attraction and synthetic Rashba spin–orbit coupling. The general effective action for the collective modes is derived from the functional path integral formalism. By tuning the spin–orbit coupling from weak to strong, the system undergoes a crossover from an ordinary BCS/BEC superfluid to a Bose–Einstein condensate of rashbons. We show that the properties of the superfluid density and the Anderson–Bogoliubov mode manifest this crossover. At large spin–orbit coupling, the superfluid density and the sound velocity become independent of the strength of the s$s$-wave attraction. The two-body interaction among the rashbons is also determined. When a Zeeman field is turned on, the system undergoes quantum phase transitions to some exotic superfluid phases which are topologically nontrivial. For the two-dimensional system, the nonanalyticities of the thermodynamic functions and the sound velocity across the phase transition are related to the bulk gapless fermionic excitation which causes infrared singularities. The superfluid density and the sound velocity behave nonmonotonically: they are suppressed by the Zeeman field in the normal superfluid phase, but get enhanced in the topological superfluid phase. The three-dimensional system is also studied.     

Stationary ring solitons in field theory — Knots and vortons

We review the current status of the problem of constructing classical field theory solutions describing stationary vortex rings in Minkowski space in 3+1 dimensions. We describe the known up to date solutions of this type, such as the static knot solitons stabilized by the topological Hopf charge, the attempts to gauge them, the anomalous solitons stabilized by the Chern–Simons number, as well as the non-Abelian monopole and sphaleron rings. Passing to the rotating solutions, we first discuss the conditions ensuring that they do not radiate, and then describe the spinning Q$Q$-balls, their twisted and gauged generalizations reported here for the first time, spinning skyrmions, and rotating monopole–antimonopole pairs. We then present the first explicit construction of global vortons as solutions of the elliptic boundary value problem, which demonstrates their non-radiating character. Finally, we describe the analogs of vortons in the Bose–Einstein condensates, analogs of spinning Q$Q$-balls in the non-linear optics, and also moving vortex rings in superfluid helium and in ferromagnetics.     

Macroscopic properties of triplon Bose–Einstein condensates

Magnetic insulators can be characterized by a gap separating the singlet ground state from the lowest-energy triplet, S=1 excitation. If the gap can be closed by the Zeeman interaction in applied magnetic field, the resulting quasiparticles, triplons, can have concentrations sufficient to undergo the Bose–Einstein condensates transition. We consider macroscopic properties of the triplon Bose–Einstein condensates in the Hartree–Fock–Bogoliubov approximation taking into account the anomalous averages. We prove that these averages play the qualitative role in the condensate properties. As a result, we show that with the increase in the external magnetic field at a given temperature, the condensate demonstrates an instability related to the appearance of nonzero phonon damping and a change in the characteristic dependence of the speed of sound on the magnetic field. The calculated magnetic susceptibility diverges when the external magnetic field approaches this instability threshold, providing a tool for the experimental verification of this approach.     

Binary quantum turbulence arising from countersuperflow instability in two-component Bose-Einstein condensates

We theoretically study the development of quantum turbulence from two counter-propagating superfluids of miscible Bose-Einstein condensates by numerically solving the coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations. When the relative velocity exceeds a critical value, the countersuperflow becomes unstable and quantized vortices are nucleated, which leads to isotropic quantum turbulence consisting of two superflows. It is shown that the binary turbulence can be realized experimentally in a trapped system.     

Efficient numerical methods for computing ground states and dynamics of dipolar Bose–Einstein condensates

New efficient and accurate numerical methods are proposed to compute ground states and dynamics of dipolar Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) described by a three-dimensional (3D) Gross–Pitaevskii equation (GPE) with a dipolar interaction potential. Due to the high singularity in the dipolar interaction potential, it brings significant difficulties in mathematical analysis and numerical simulations of dipolar BECs. In this paper, by decoupling the two-body dipolar interaction potential into short-range (or local) and long-range interactions (or repulsive and attractive interactions), the GPE for dipolar BECs is reformulated as a Gross–Pitaevskii–Poisson type system. Based on this new mathematical formulation, we prove rigorously existence and uniqueness as well as nonexistence of the ground states, and discuss the existence of global weak solution and finite time blow-up of the dynamics in different parameter regimes of dipolar BECs. In addition, a backward Euler sine pseudospectral method is presented for computing the ground states and a time-splitting sine pseudospectral method is proposed for computing the dynamics of dipolar BECs. Due to the adoption of new mathematical formulation, our new numerical methods avoid evaluating integrals with high singularity and thus they are more efficient and accurate than those numerical methods currently used in the literatures for solving the problem. Extensive numerical examples in 3D are reported to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of our new numerical methods for computing the ground states and dynamics of dipolar BECs.     

An efficient numerical method for computing dynamics of spin F = 2 Bose–Einstein condensates

In this paper, we extend the efficient time-splitting Fourier pseudospectral method to solve the generalized Gross–Pitaevskii (GP) equations, which model the dynamics of spin F = 2 Bose–Einstein condensates at extremely low temperature. Using the time-splitting technique, we split the generalized GP equations into one linear part and two nonlinear parts: the linear part is solved with the Fourier pseudospectral method; one of nonlinear parts is solved analytically while the other one is reformulated into a matrix formulation and solved by diagonalization. We show that the method keeps well the conservation laws related to generalized GP equations in 1D and 2D. We also show that the method is of second-order in time and spectrally accurate in space through a one-dimensional numerical test. We apply the method to investigate the dynamics of spin F = 2 Bose–Einstein condensates confined in a uniform/nonuniform magnetic field.     

Modeling of classical turbulence by quantized vortices

Quantum turbulence in superfluids appears as a stochastic tangle of quantized vortex lines. Interest to this system extends beyond the field of superfluid helium to include a large variety of topics both fundamental and engineering problem. In the article we present a discussion of the hot topic, which is undoubtedly mainstream in this field, and which deals with the quasi-classical properties of quantum turbulence. The idea that classical turbulence can be modeled by a set of slim vortex tubes (or vortex sheets) has been discussed for quite a long time. In classical fluids, the concept of thin vortex tubes is a rather fruitful mathematical model. Quantum fluids, where the vortex filaments are real objects, give an excellent opportunity for the study of the question, whether the dynamics of a set of vortex lines is able to reproduce (at least partially) the properties of real hydrodynamic turbulence. The main goal of this article is to discuss the current state of this activity. We cover such important topics as theoretical justification of this model, and experimental and numerical evidence for quasi-classical turbulence.