自旋-轨道耦合作用下玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚在量子相变附近的朗道临界速度

各向异性超流体中的朗道临界速度并非简单地由运动方向的元激发能谱决定.在自旋-轨道耦合作用下的双分量玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚中,当系统跨过平面波相与零动量相之间的量子相变时,尽管超流声速连续变化,但垂直于自旋-轨道耦合方向的朗道临界速度会出现跳变,跳变幅度随自旋相互作用强度单调增加.根据线性响应理论,计算了凝聚体中运动杂质在不同速度下的能量耗散率,提出可以通过能量耗散观测临界速度在量子相变处的不连续性.

Landau critical velocity of spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensate across quantum phase transition

An impurity immersed in a superfluid can move without friction when its velocity is below a critical value. This phenomenon can be explained by the famous Landau criterion, according to which, the critical velocity is determined by the elementary excitation spectrum of the superfluid. Landau critical velocity has been measured in the isotropic superfluid, such as the liquid He-Ⅱ and the Bose-Einstein condensates of dilute atomic gases, where the onset of dissipation is due to the creation of roton and phonon, respectively. The recent realization of synthetic spin-orbit coupling in quantum gas opens up possibilities for the study of novel superfluidity with ultracold atoms. To date, a specific type of spin-orbit coupling, which is generated by a pair of Raman laser beams, has been achieved in a Bose-Einstein condensate of ⁸⁷Rb experimentally. Remarkably, the excitation spectrum of this system is anisotropic and can be feasibly tuned by the external laser field. While the anisotropic dynamics has been observed experimentally, the critical velocity has not been measured so far. It is a conventional wisdom that in an anisotropic superfluid, the critical velocity is determined by the excitation spectrum in the moving direction of the impurity. However, this is not always the case. In this work, we investigate the motion of a point-like impurity in a spin-orbit-coupled condensate with the spin-dependent interatomic interaction. In the vicinity of the quantum phase transition between the plane-wave (PW) phase and the zero-momentum (ZM) phase, the onset of the dissipation is due to the emission of a phonon, and the Landau critical velocity v_c depends on the anisotropic sound velocity. While the sound velocity varies smoothly across the PW-ZM phase transition, the critical velocity in the direction perpendicular to the axis of spin-orbit coupling exhibits a sudden jump at the phase boundary. The value of v_c on the PW phase side of the transition is generally smaller than the one on the ZM phase side, and the jump amplitude of v_c is an increasing function of the spin-dependent interaction strength. Beyond the critical velocity, the energy dissipation rate of the impurity is explicitly calculated via a perturbation approach. The discontinuity of v_c at the phase boundary can be clearly seen from the dissipation curves, which can be measured through the heating of the condensate. Our prediction can be tested in the current experiments with ultracold atoms.