Spatiotemporal Bloch states of a spin–orbit coupled Bose–Einstein condensate in an optical lattice

We study the spatiotemporal Bloch states of a high-frequency driven two-component Bose–Einstein condensate(BEC)with spin–orbit coupling(SOC) in an optical lattice. By adopting the rotating-wave approximation(RWA) and applying an exact trial-solution to the corresponding quasistationary system, we establish a different method for tuning SOC via external field such that the existence conditions of the exact particular solutions are fitted. Several novel features related to the exact states are demonstrated; for example, SOC leads to spin–motion entanglement for the spatiotemporal Bloch states, SOC increases the population imbalance of the two-component BEC, and SOC can be applied to manipulate the stable atomic flow which is conducive to control quantum transport of the BEC for different application purposes.     

SU(3) spin–orbit-coupled Bose–Einstein condensate confined in a harmonic plus quartic trap

We consider a SU(3) spin–orbit coupled Bose–Einstein condensate confined in a harmonic plus quartic trap.The ground-state wave functions of such a system are obtained by minimizing the Gross–Pitaevskii energy functional, and the effects of the spin-dependent interaction and spin–orbit coupling are investigated in detail.For the case of ferromagnetic spin interaction, the SU(3) spin–orbit coupling induces a threefold-degenerate plane wave ground state with nontrivial spin texture.For the case of antiferromagnetic spin interaction, the system shows phase separation for weak SU(3) spin–orbit coupling, where three discrete minima with unequal weights in momentum space are selected, while hexagonal honeycomb lattice structure for strong SU(3) SOC, where three discrete minima with equal weights are selected.     

Bose–Einstein condensates in an eightfold symmetric optical lattice

We investigate the properties of Bose–Einstein condensates(BECs) in a two-dimensional quasi-periodic optical lattice(OL) with eightfold rotational symmetry by numerically solving the Gross–Pitaevskii equation. In a stationary external harmonic trapping potential, we first analyze the evolution of matter-wave interference pattern from periodic to quasiperiodic as the OL is changed continuously from four-fold periodic to eight-fold quasi-periodic. We also investigate the transport properties during this evolution for different interatomic interaction and lattice depth, and find that the BEC crosses over from ballistic diffusion to localization. Finally, we focus on the case of eightfold symmetric lattice and consider a global rotation imposed by the external trapping potential. The BEC shows vortex pattern with eightfold symmetry for slow rotation, becomes unstable for intermediate rotation, and exhibits annular solitons with approximate axial symmetry for fast rotation. These results can be readily demonstrated in experiments using the same configuration as in Phys. Rev.Lett. 122 110404(2019).     

Composite solitons in SU(3) spin–orbit-coupling Bose gases

We study solitons in a spin-1 Bose–Einstein condensates with SU(3) spin–orbit coupling. We obtain the ground state and the metastable solution for solitons with attractive interactions by the imaginary-time evolution method. Compared with the SU(2) spin–orbit coupling, it is found that the solitons in SU(3) spin–orbit coupling show a new feature due to breaking the symmetry. The solitons called the composite solitons have mixing manifolds of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic states. This has stimulated people to study the topological excitation properties of SU(3) spin–orbit coupling and it is expected to find new quantum phases.     

Dynamics of bright soliton in a spin–orbit coupled spin-1 Bose–Einstein condensate

We have investigated the dynamics of bright solitons in a spin–orbit coupled spin-1 Bose–Einstein condensate analytically and numerically. By using the hyperbolic sine function as the trial function to describe a plane wave bright soliton with a single finite momentum, we have derived the motion equations of soliton's spin and center of mass, and obtained its exact analytical solutions. Our results show that the spin–orbit coupling couples the soliton's spin with its center-of-mass motion, the spin oscillations induced by the exchange of atoms between components result in the periodical oscillation of center-of-mass, and the motion of center of mass of soliton can be viewed as a superposition of periodical and linear motions. Our analytical results have also been confirmed by the direct numerical simulations of Gross–Pitaevskii equations.     

Superfluidity of Bose Einstein condensates in ultracold atomic gases

Liquid helium 4 had been the only bosonic superfluid available in experiments for a long time. This situation was changed in 1995, when a new superfluid was born with the realization of the Bose–Einstein condensation in ultracold atomic gases. The liquid helium 4 is strongly interacting and has no spin; there is almost no way to change its parameters,such as interaction strength and density. The new superfluid, Bose–Einstein condensate(BEC), offers various advantages over liquid helium. On the one hand, BEC is weakly interacting and has spin degrees of freedom. On the other hand, it is convenient to tune almost all the parameters of a BEC, for example, the kinetic energy by spin–orbit coupling, the density by the external potential, and the interaction by Feshbach resonance. Great efforts have been devoted to studying these new aspects, and the results have greatly enriched our understanding of superfluidity. Here we review these developments by focusing on the stability and critical velocity of various superfluids. The BEC systems considered include a uniform superfluid in free space, a superfluid with its density periodically modulated, a superfluid with artificially engineered spin–orbit coupling, and a superfluid of pure spin current. Due to the weak interaction, these BEC systems can be well described by the mean-field Gross–Pitaevskii theory and their superfluidity, in particular critical velocities, can be examined with the aid of Bogoliubov excitations. Experimental proposals to observe these new aspects of superfluidity are discussed.     

Stimulated Raman Adiabatic Population Transfer of Two Bose—Einstein Condensates

Considering all the ground-state atom interactions,we investigate the population transfer of two Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) states,which are trapped in diffecent potential wells,or two ground states of the BEC in the same trap using the stimulated Raman adiabatic process.With a proper choice of pulsed geometric parameters,the dark state exists.By simply choosing ground-state detunings,the effects of the interatomic interaction can be suppressed and a high population transfer rate can be obtained.     

Ground-state vortex structures of a rotating binary dipolar Bose–Einstein condensate confined in harmonic plus quartic potential

We consider a binary dipolar Bose–Einstein condensate confined in a rotating harmonic plus quartic potential trap.The ground-state vortex structures are numerically obtained as a function of the contact interactions and the dipole–dipole interaction in both slow and rapid rotation cases. The results show that the vortex configurations depend strongly on the strength of the contact interactions, the relative strength between dipolar and contact interactions, as well as on the orientation of the dipoles. A variety of exotic ground-state vortex structures, such as pentagonal and hexagon vortex lattice,square vortex lattice with a central vortex, annular vortex lines, and straight vortex lines, are observed by turning such controllable parameters. Our results deepen the understanding of effects of dipole–dipole interaction on the topological defects.     

Global phase diagram of a spin–orbit-coupled Kondo lattice model on the honeycomb lattice

Motivated by the growing interest in the novel quantum phases in materials with strong electron correlations and spin–orbit coupling, we study the interplay among the spin–orbit coupling, Kondo interaction, and magnetic frustration of a Kondo lattice model on a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice.We calculate the renormalized electronic structure and correlation functions at the saddle point based on a fermionic representation of the spin operators.We find a global phase diagram of the model at half-filling, which contains a variety of phases due to the competing interactions.In addition to a Kondo insulator, there is a topological insulator with valence bond solid correlations in the spin sector, and two antiferromagnetic phases.Due to the competition between the spin–orbit coupling and Kondo interaction, the direction of the magnetic moments in the antiferromagnetic phases can be either within or perpendicular to the lattice plane.The latter antiferromagnetic state is topologically nontrivial for moderate and strong spin–orbit couplings.     

Polaron and molecular states of a spin–orbit coupled impurity in a spinless Fermi sea

We investigate the polaron and molecular states of a fermionic atom with one-dimensional spin–orbit coupling(SOC)coupled to a three-dimensional spinless Fermi sea. Because of the interplay among the SOC, Raman coupling and spinselected interatomic interactions, the polaron state induced by the spin–orbit coupled impurity exhibits quite unique features. We find that the energy dispersion of the polaron generally has a double-minimum structure, which results in a finite center-of-mass(c.m.) momentum in the ground state, different from the zero-momentum polarons where SOC are introduced into the majority atoms. By further tuning the parameters such as the atomic interaction strength, a discontinuous transition between the polarons with different c.m. momenta may occur, signaled by the singular behavior of the quasiparticle residue and effective mass of the polaron. Meanwhile, the molecular state as well as the polaron-to-molecule transition is also strongly affected by the Raman coupling and the effective Zeeman field, which are introduced by the lasers generating SOC on the impurity atom. We also discuss the effects of a more general spin-dependent interaction and mass ratio. These results would be beneficial for the study of impurity physics brought by SOC.     

Exact Bloch States of a Spin-orbit Coupled Bose-Einstein Condensate in an Optical Lattice

We study the exact Bloch states of a spin-orbit (SO) coupled Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) held in an optical lattice. Under a natural condition of the symmetry between the two species, we obtain two different forms of exact solutions corresponding to different existing conditions. Then, we analytically demonstrate that (a) the average atomic number per well can enlarge the region area (consisting of instability and stability parameter regions) existing exact solutions; (b) the sizes of the instability and stability parameter regions exhibit opposite variation trend with the increase in Rabi coupling strength, and the results of different solutions are just opposite. Besides, we find that spin-orbit coupling (SOC) results in the generation of spin-motion entanglement for the Bloch states, the SOC strength and lattice depth can influence the population transfer between two BEC components, and varying the SOC strength and lattice depth can also reveal the dynamical superfluid-insulator transition from the superfluid state to the critical insulating state. These results present a feasible scheme to manipulate the stable superfluid currents, which will be useful to control quantum transport of BEC.

     

Absorption-induced optical bistability and dissipative solitons in a BEC interferometer

A model of the absorption-induced nonlinear response of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate driven by a weak resonant laser beam is presented. The model takes into account the slow BEC decay due to spontaneous emission and magnetic-trap loss by binary collisions, as well as compensation of the decay by injection of ground-state atoms into the trap. It is shown that the nonlinear response is much stronger than in other nonlinear optical media. For a BEC interferometer driven by a monochromatic beam, the threshold intensity for hysteretic switching is found, and dissipative spatial solitons are demonstrated.     

Dipolar Bose–Einstein condensate soliton on a two-dimensional optical lattice

Using a three-dimensional mean-field model we study one-dimensional dipolar Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) solitons on a weak two-dimensional (2D) square and triangular optical lattice (OL) potentials placed perpendicular to the polarization direction. The stabilization against collapse and expansion of these solitons for a fixed dipolar interaction and a fixed number of atoms is possible for short-range atomic interaction lying between two critical limits. The solitons collapse below the lower limit and escapes to infinity above the upper limit. One can also stabilize identical tiny BEC solitons arranged on the 2D square OL sites forming a stable 2D array of interacting droplets when the OL sites are filled with a filling factor of 1/2 or less. Such an array is unstable when the filling factor is made more than 1/2 by occupying two adjacent sites of OL. These stable 2D arrays of dipolar superfluid BEC solitons are quite similar to the recently studied dipolar Mott insulator states on 2D lattice in the Bose–Hubbard model by Capogrosso-Sansone et al. [B. Capogrosso-Sansone, C. Trefzger, M. Lewenstein, P. Zoller, G. Pupillo, Phys. Rev. Lett. 104 (2010) 125301].     

Matter wave interferometry for measuring a molecular transition dipole moment

We consider localized states of both single- and two-component Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) confined in a potential resulting from the superposition of linear and nonlinear optical lattices and make use of Vakhitov-Kolokolov criterion to investigate the effect of nonlinear lattice on the stability of the soliton solutions in the linear optical lattice (LOL). For the single-component case we show that a weak nonlinear lattice has very little effect on the stability of such solitons while sufficiently strong nonlinear optical lattice (NOL) squeezes them to produce narrow bound states. For two-component condensates we find that when the strength of the NOL (γ ₁) is less than that of the LOL (V ₀) a relatively weak intra-atomic interaction (IAI) has little effect on the stability of the component solitons. This is true for both attractive and repulsive IAI. A strong attractive IAI, however, squeezes the BEC solitons while a similar repulsive IAI makes the component solitons wider. For γ ₁ > V ₀, only a strong attractive IAI squeezes the BEC solitons but the squeezing effect is less prominent than that found for γ ₁ < V ₀. We make useful checks on the results of our semianalytical stability analysis by solving the appropriate Gross-Pitaevskii equations numerically.     

玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚体中的双孤子相互作用操控

考虑周期性驱动线性势, 利用Darboux变换法解析地研究了玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚体(BEC)中的双孤子相互作用, 得到了S-波散射长度的临界值. 结果表明: 当S-波散射长度高于临界值时, BEC中的两个亮孤子相互吸引并融合; 而当S-波散射长度低于临界值时, 两个亮孤子保持局域稳定. 此外, 在外部势阱的驱动下, 两个稳定的亮孤子产生周期性振荡行为.     

Dipole solitons in an optical lattice with longitudinal modulation

In this paper, we numerically demonstrate the (1+1)-dimensional dipole solitons can exist in a new Kerr-type optical lattice with longitudinal modulation that fades away and boosts up alternately. The solitons whose two dipoles simultaneously located at one lattice site and at two adjacent lattice sites are investigated, respectively. The results show that, in the two cases, the dipole solitons can be stably trapped in this kind of lattice by properly adjusting lattice parameters and soliton parameters when the repulsive force of dipoles balances the centripetal force resulting from the lattice potential effect on dipole solitons. In addition, the trapping of dipole solitons with an incident angle or the initial center position is discussed.     

Ground states, solitons and spin textures in spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates

We present an overview of our recent theoretical studies on the quantum phenomena of the spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates, including the phase diagram, soliton solutions and the formation of the topological spin textures. A brief exploration of the effects of spin-orbit coupling on the ground-state properties is given. We put forward proposals by using the transmission spectra of an optical cavity to probe the quantum ground states: the ferromagnetic and polar phases. Quasi-one-dimension solitons and ring dark solitons are studied. It is predicted that characteristics of the magnetic solitons in optical lattice can be tuned by controlling the long-range light-induced and static magnetic dipoledipole interactions; solutions of single-component magnetic and single-, two-, three-components polar solitons are found; ring dark solitons in spin-1 condensates are predicted to live longer lifetimes than that in their scalar counterparts. In the formation of spin textures, we have considered the theoretical model of a rapidly quenched and fast rotating trapped spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate, whose dynamics can be studied by solving the stochastic projected Gross-Pitaevskii equations. Spontaneous generation of nontrivial topological defects, such as the hexagonal lattice skyrmions and square lattice of half-quantized vortices was predicted. In particular, crystallization of merons (half skyrmions) can be generated in the presence of spin-orbit coupling.     

Shaping soliton properties in Mathieu lattices

We address basic properties and stability of two-dimensional solitons in photonic lattices induced by the nondiffracting Mathieu beams. Such lattices allow for smooth topological transformation of radially symmetric Bessel lattices into quasi-one-dimensional periodic ones. The transformation of lattice topology drastically affects the properties of ground-state and dipole-mode solitons, including their shape, stability, and transverse mobility.     

Gap solitons of spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates in $\mathcal{PT}$ periodic potential

We numerically investigate the gap solitons in Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) with spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in the parity-time ($\mathcal{PT}$)-symmetric periodic potential. We find that the depths and periods of the imaginary lattice have an important influence on the shape and stability of these single-peak gap solitons and double-peak gap solitons in the first band gap. The dynamics of these gap solitons are checked by the split-time-step Crank-Nicolson method. It is proved that the depths of the imaginary part of the $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric periodic potential gradually increase, and the gap solitons become unstable. But the different periods of imaginary part hardly affect the stability of the gap solitons in the corresponding parameter interval.     

Matter-wave bright solitons in effective bichromatic lattice potentials

Matter-wave bright solitons in bichromatic lattice potentials are considered and their dynamics for different lattice environments are studied. Bichromatic potentials are created from superpositions of (i) two linear optical lattices and (ii) a linear and a nonlinear optical lattice. Effective potentials are found for the solitons in both bichromatic lattices and a comparative study is done on the dynamics of solitons with respect to the effective potentials. The effects of dispersion on solitons in bichromatic lattices are studied and it is found that the dispersive spreading can be minimized by appropriate combinations of lattice and interaction parameters. Stability of nondispersive matter-wave solitons is checked from phase portrait analysis.