Stability of the half-vortex in spin-orbit coupled Bose–Einstein condensate

Abstract

The half-vortex stability of the stripe phase in spin-orbit (SO) coupled Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) is discussed through the multi-mode theory. We find that when the energy of the Rabi coupling is close to zero, the half-vortex in the trap center is always dynamically stable; when the energy becomes larger, the vortex may be structurally unstable. Both of the results are confirmed by the numerical simulation of the full Gross–Pitaevskii equation.