Three-dimensional quaternionic condensations, Hopf invariants, and skyrmion lattices with synthetic spin-orbit coupling

Abstract

We study the topological configurations of the two-component condensates of bosons with the three-dimensional $(3\mathrm{D}) \stackrel{P\vec}{\ensuremath{\sigma}}\ifmmode\cdot\else\textperiodcentered\fi{}\stackrel{P\vec}{p}$ Weyl-type spin-orbit coupling subject to a harmonic trapping potential. The topology of the condensate wave functions manifests in the quaternionic representation. In comparison to the $\text{U}(1)$ complex phase, the quaternionic phase manifold is ${S}^{3}$ and the spin orientations form the ${S}^{2}$ Bloch sphere through the first Hopf mapping. The spatial distributions of the quaternionic phases exhibit the 3D skyrmion configurations, and the spin distributions possess nontrivial Hopf invariants. Spin textures evolve from the concentric distributions at the weak spin-orbit coupling regime to the rotation symmetry-breaking patterns at the intermediate spin-orbit coupling regime. In the strong spin-orbit coupling regime, the single-particle spectra exhibit the Landau-level-type quantization. In this regime, the three-dimensional skyrmion lattice structures are formed when interactions are below the energy scale of Landau-level mixings. Sufficiently strong interactions can change condensates into spin-polarized plane-wave states or superpositions of two plane waves exhibiting helical spin spirals.