Plane-wave Phase Research Articles

Elementary excitations in a spin–orbit-coupled Floquet spinor Bose–Einstein condensate

We study elementary excitations in a Floquet-engineered spin-1 BEC with spin–orbit coupling, which can be realized by periodically driving the quadratic Zeeman shift. We calculate the excitation spectrum of the plane-wave phase, the zero-momentum phase, and the stripe phase, as well as the corresponding response function and static structure factor. In special, we find that two roton modes appear in the lowest two excitation bands of the stripe phase, which are tunable by changing the driving parameters. The phase transition between different phases can be identified by the sound velocity of these phases. We also investigate spin dynamics in such a system, which strongly depend on the driving parameter.

Supercurrent-carrying supersolid in spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates

One of brilliant achievements in spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates is the discovery and observation of the supersolid stripe states. So far, all studied supersolid stripe states do not carry supercurrent. In this paper, we reveal the existence of supercurrent-carrying supersolids in spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates. The supersolid family has a parabolic-like dispersion and carries supercurrent, which is proportional to the quasimomentum. Energetic and dynamical instabilities can break supercurrent-carrying ability of this supersolid family. An insightful interpretation of the dynamical instability of supercurrent-carrying supersolids from the pure plane-wave phase is provided. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

The dynamical stripes in spin–orbit coupled Bose–Einstein condensates with Josephson junctions

The Josephson dynamics of the Bose–Einstein condensation with Raman-induced spin–orbit coupling is investigated. A quasi-1D trap is divided into two reservoirs by an optical barrier. Before the tunneling between the reservoirs is turned on, the system stays in its equilibrium ground state, which displays a rich phase diagram for different spin–orbit coupling parameters and interaction strengths. In this work we focus on the plane wave phase and the stripe phase. Our calculation shows that, when the tunneling is turned on, the plane wave phase evolves into a dynamical stripe phase, that is, the density of the particle changes from uniform to periodically modulated. Basically, this stripe is described by a sine function and the wave length, the amplitude and the initial phase of the function are all varying with time. If the system stays in stripe phase initially, the stripes become “sliding” when the tunneling is turned on, which reflects the running of one of the phases of the wave function.

Stationary and moving bright solitons in Bose–Einstein condensates with spin–orbit coupling in a Zeeman field

We explore the existence and stability domains of stationary and moving bright solitons in spin–orbit-coupled spin-1 Bose–Einstein condensates in an external Zeeman field. Two families of bell-shape bright solitons (plane-wave (PW) phases) and two families of stripe-shape bright solitons (standing-wave (SW) phases) are obtained. We find a relation between the existence of these bright solitons and the single-particle energy spectrum, as well as the requirements of their existence for atomic interactions. The stability of four families of bright solitons is systematically analyzed using the linear stability analysis method. For two families of PW bright solitons, they are unstable only when the strength of the Zeeman field is above a critical value. The critical value is affected by the spin–orbit coupling and hardly affected by atomic interactions. When the velocities of solitons are zero (nonzero), the critical values of these two families are equal (unequal). For two families of SW bright solitons, their stability domains are identical in the absence of the Zeeman field, and they are unstable when the ferromagnetic interaction is strong. In the presence of the Zeeman field, their stability domains are complementary and complex, and one family of SW bright solitons can exist stably in the area with stronger ferromagnetic interaction. Furthermore, we find the collisions of stable bright solitons with different velocities can generate intriguing dynamics.

Anharmonicity-induced phase transition of spin–orbit coupled Bose–Einstein condensates

In the mean-field framework, using variational analysis and numerical simulation, we investigate the effect of anharmonic trap and atomic interaction on the ground-state phases of spin-orbit (SO) coupled Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) in the harmonic plus quartic potential. Then, the Gaussian wave function is selected to predict the analytical conditions of the phase transition boundary of the SO coupled BECs by using the variational method. We found that the anharmonicity of the external potential induces the SO coupled BECs to undergo a phase transition between the zero-momentum phase and plane-wave phase, which is more pronounced in the cases of weak harmonic potential or strong interspecies interaction. Since the potential energy of the system modified by anharmonicity competes with other energies of the system, the anharmonicity changes the critical SO coupling strength and Raman coupling strength when the phase transition occurs. At the same time, the critical anharmonic coefficients are also affected by interspecies interaction and harmonic potential. Finally, the correctness of the theoretical results is verified by numerical simulation of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.

Excitation spectrum of tunable spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensates and its effective regulation

<sec>In a recent experiment, the excitation spectrum of spin-orbit (SO) coupled Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) of <inline-formula><tex-math id="M1">\begin{document}$^{87}{\rm{Rb}}$\end{document}</tex-math><alternatives><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="6-20222306_M1.jpg"/><graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="6-20222306_M1.png"/></alternatives></inline-formula> atoms was studied by using Bragg spectroscopy, and the roton-maxon structure was found to exist in the excitation spectrum of magnetized phase. In addition, the roton-mode and its softening phenomenon are obtained by using various artificial SO couplings such as Rashba SO coupling and spin-orbital-angular-momentum coupling. However, the SO coupling strength in previous studies could not be controlled in real time, which limits the further study and precise regulation of the excitation spectrum of condensate. Thus, it is still an important topic to study how to regulate the SO coupling strength of the system through an external driving field, and further regulate the excitation spectrum of SO coupled BECs.</sec> <sec>In this work, the excitation spectrum of a tunable SO coupled BECs in free space is studied by using Bogoliubov theory. The time-independent effective Floquet Hamiltonian with two-body interaction is obtained in the high frequency approximation, and then a tunable SO coupling and an effective two-body interaction that can be regulated by the periodic driving of Raman coupling are obtained. Based on the effective Floquet Hamiltonian of the system, the dispersion relation of the BECs with interactions is numerically calculated. It is found that the periodic driving can effectively regulate the structure of the dispersion relation, which indicates that the periodic driving can regulate the phase transition between the zero-momentum phase and the plane wave phase. Then, the Bogoliubov-de-Gennes (BdG) equation of the system is obtained by using Bogoliubov theory. Moreover, the excitation spectrum of the BECs in the zero momentum phase and the plane wave phase are studied, respectively. Only the phonon excitation exists in the excitation spectrum of the zero momentum phase, and the excitation spectrum behaves as a Bessel function with the increase of the periodic driving strength. The phonon and roton excitations exist in the excitation spectrum of the plane wave phase, and the roton mode gradually softens with the increase of periodically driving strength. Therefore, the phonon and roton excitations in the excitation spectrum of SO coupled BECs can be regulated in real time by periodically driving Raman coupling.</sec>

Superfluidity of a Raman spin-orbit-coupled Bose gas at finite temperature

We investigate the superfluidity of a three-dimensional weakly interacting Bose gas with a one-dimensional Raman-type spin-orbit coupling at both zero and finite temperatures. Using the imaginary-time Green's function within the Bogoliubov approximation, we explicitly derive analytic expressions of the current-current response functions in the plane-wave and zero-momentum phases, from which we extract the superfluid density in the limits of long wavelength and zero frequency. At zero temperature, we check that the resultant superfluid density agrees exactly with our previous analytic prediction obtained from a phase-twist approach. Both results also satisfy a generalized Josephson relation in the presence of spin-orbit coupling. At finite temperature, we find a significant non-monotonic temperature dependence of superfluid density near the transition from the plane-wave phase to the zero-momentum phase. We show that this non-trivial behavior might be understood from the sound velocity, which has a similar temperature dependence. The non-monotonic temperature dependence is also shared by Landau critical velocity, above which the spin-orbit-coupled Bose gas loses its superfluidity. Our results would be useful for further theoretical and experimental studies of superfluidity in exotic spin-orbit coupled quantum gases.

Dynamics of Rotating Spin-Orbit-Coupled Spin-1 Bose-Einstein Condensates With In-Plane Gradient Magnetic Field in an Anharmonic Trap

We investigate the dynamics of rotating spin-orbit-coupled spin-1 Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) in an in-plane gradient magnetic field, which is confined in an anharmonic trap. In the case of rotating spin-orbit-coupled spin-1 BECs with given parameters, the system evolves from initial disk-shaped condensates into drastic turbulent oscillations and ghost vortices on the surface of the component densities due to surface wave excitations and then into two final vortex necklaces along the azimuthal direction with an irregular density hole, in which the vortices differ by one quantum number in turn. For the case of rotating spin-orbit-coupled spin-1 BECs with in-plane gradient magnetic field, with the dynamic evolution, the system undergoes a transition from an initial central polar-core vortex to violent turbulent oscillations and then to a final vortex chain along the diagonal of BECs, with the remaining vortices symmetrically distributed on both sides in the individual component. In addition, the corresponding spin texture undergoes a transition from plane-wave phase to double half-antiskyrmion necklaces for the former case and a transition from a structure similar to a quadrupole magnetic field to a half-antiskyrmion chain with the rest of the half-antiskyrmions on both sides. During the dynamic evolution process, the angular momentum increases gradually and then approaches a convergent value.

Faraday patterns in spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates

We study the Faraday patterns generated by spin-orbit-coupling induced parametric resonance in a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate with repulsive interaction. The collective elementary excitations of the Bose-Einstein condensate, including density waves and spin waves, are coupled as the result of the Raman-induced spin-orbit coupling and a quench of the relative phase of two Raman lasers without the modulation of any of the system's parameters. We observed several higher parametric resonance tongues at integer multiples of the driving frequency and investigated the interplay between Faraday instabilities and modulation instabilities when we quench the spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensate from zero-momentum phase to plane-wave phase. If the detuning is equal to zero, the wave number of combination resonance barely changes as the strength of spin-orbit coupling increases. If the detuning is not equal to zero after a quench, a single combination resonance tongue will split into two parts.

The Bloch oscillations of spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensates in deep optical lattices

We study the ground state and the Bloch oscillations of the spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensates in one-dimensional deep optical lattices. The phase transition between the zero-momentum phase and the plane-wave phase in untilted deep optical lattices is studied analytically. The Bloch oscillations in tilted lattices started in different ground state phases are analyzed. It is found that the Bloch dynamics is harmonic (anharmonic) in the zero-momentum phase (plane-wave phase). Furthermore, the modification of the Bloch oscillations induced by spin-orbit coupling, tunnelling coefficient and the external force (the inclination of the tilt) is revealed. In addition, the analytical condition for emerging the long-lived Bloch oscillations is obtained and the corresponding diagram in parameter space is provided. Particularly, we find that the spin-orbit coupling can extend the duration of the Bloch oscillations in the plane-wave phase. We provide an effective method to manipulate the Bloch dynamics in the deep optical lattices.

Quantum phases of interacting bosons on biased two-leg ladders with magnetic flux

The realization and detection of various phase transitions in interacting two-leg bosonic flux ladders are at the frontier of the present theoretical and experimental research in condensed-matter physics. We develop a biased two-leg Bose-Hubbard flux ladder model and first achieve the ground states and phase transition conditions of this system by the mean-field approach and variational analysis. Rich phases are revealed, including two different kinds of plane-wave phase, i.e., plane wave I (characterized with one single energy minimum of the energy band) and plane wave II (characterized with two nondegenerate local energy minima of the energy band), and interestingly the asymmetry vortex phase with the breaking of both ${Z}_{2}$ reflection symmetry and translational symmetry of space, which is characterized by the vortex with imbalanced density distributions on two legs. Moreover, the corresponding quantum phases can also be distinguished by the order parameters and the excitation spectra of the plane-wave phase intuitively. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this biased ladder system also makes it possible to realize a different dynamical asymmetric vortex state, which shows a dynamical supersolidlike property.

Conjugate wavefront encoding: an efficient eyebox extension approach for holographic Maxwellian near-eye display.

Conventional holographic display suffers from the conjugate light issue. In this Letter, we propose to efficiently extend the eyebox of holographic Maxwellian near-eye display by encoding the conjugate wavefront as the multiplication of plane wave phase with the target image. It is interesting that after being focused by the lens, the generated conjugate viewpoints also present erect virtual images with the same image quality as the signal viewpoints. Multiple plane wave encoding is used for eyebox extension, and, because of the utilization of conjugate light, the effect of eyebox extension is doubled. That is, the space bandwidth of the amplitude-type hologram is fully used. A speckless holographic image is produced in mid-air with high quality within a large depth range. The proposed display is compact and promising for the augmented reality near-eye display. Furthermore, it may inspire better solutions for the conjugate light issue of amplitude-type holography.

Spinor F = 1 Bose-Einstein condensates loaded in two types of radially-periodic potentials with spin-orbit coupling* *Project supported by the National Natural Science of China (Grant Nos. 11904242 and 12004264) and the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province, China (Grant Nos. A2019210280 and A2019210124).

We consider two-dimensional spinor F = 1 Bose–Einstein condensates in two types of radially-periodic potentials with spin–orbit coupling, i.e., spin-independent and spin-dependent radially-periodic potentials. For the Bose–Einstein condensates in a spin-independent radially-periodic potential, the density of each component exhibits the periodic density modulation along the azimuthal direction, which realizes the necklacelike state in the ferromagnetic Bose–Einstein condensates. As the spin-exchange interaction increases, the necklacelike state gradually transition to the plane wave phase for the antiferromagnetic Bose–Einstein condensates with larger spin–orbit coupling. The competition of the spin-dependent radially-periodic potential, spin–orbit coupling, and spin-exchange interaction gives rise to the exotic ground-state phases when the Bose–Einstein condensates in a spin-dependent radially-periodic potential.

Ground-state phase and superfluidity of tunable spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates.

We theoretically study the ground-state phases and superfluidity of tunable spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) under the periodic driving of Raman coupling. An effective time-independent Floquet Hamiltonian is proposed by using a high-frequency approximation, and we find single-particle dispersion, spin-orbit-coupling, and asymmetrical nonlinear two-body interaction can be modulated effectively by the periodic driving. The critical Raman coupling characterizing the phase transition and relevant physical quantities in three different phases (the stripe phase, plane-wave phase, and zero momentum phase) are obtained analytically. Our results indicate that the boundary of ground-state phases can be controlled and the system will undergo three different phase transitions by adjusting the external driving. Interestingly, we find the contrast of the stripe density can be enhanced by the periodic driving in the stripe phase. We also study the superfluidity of tunable spin-orbit-coupled BECs and find the dynamical instability can be tuned by the periodic driving of Raman coupling. Furthermore, the sound velocity of the ground-state and superfluidity state can be controlled effectively by tuning the periodic driving strength. Our results indicate that the periodic driving of Raman coupling provides a powerful tool to manipulate the ground-state phase transition and dynamical instability of spin-orbit-coupled BECs.

Bose–Einstein condensates under a non-Hermitian spin–orbit coupling* *Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11974331).

We study the properties of Bose–Einstein condensates under a non-Hermitian spin–orbit coupling (SOC), induced by a dissipative two-photon Raman process. We focus on the dynamics of the condensate at short times, when the impact of decoherence induced by quantum jumps is negligible and the dynamics is coherently driven by a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian. Given the significantly modified single-particle physics by dissipative SOC, the interplay of non-Hermiticity and interaction leads to a quasi-steady-state phase diagram different from its Hermitian counterpart. In particular, we find that dissipation can induce a phase transition from the stripe phase to the plane-wave phase. We further map out the phase diagram with respect to the dissipation and interaction strengths, and finally investigate the stability of quasi-steady states through the time-dependent dissipative Gross–Pitaevskii equation. Our results are readily accessible based on standard experiments with synthetic spin–orbit couplings.

Plane- and stripe-wave phases of a spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice with a Zeeman field

A weakly interacting, spin-orbit coupled, ultracold, dilute Bose gas on a two-dimensional square lattice with an external Zeeman field is studied. We explore the plane and stripe wave phases of the system involving nonzero condensate momenta, which occur when the Zeeman field is below a critical value. Their excitation spectra are found using Bogoliubov theory and by two different routes. The validity of each method to obtain the excitation spectrum is discussed, and it is found that projection on the lowest single-particle band is an excellent approximation in the plane wave phase, while it is a poor approximation in the stripe wave phase. While the plane wave phase has a phonon minimum at its single condensate momentum, revealing a nonzero sound velocity of the excitations, the stripe wave phase has quadratic minima at its two condensate momenta showing zero sound velocity of the excitations. We discuss how the presence of more than one condensate momentum is essential for these differences between the two phases. Additionally, it is emphasized that the zero sound velocity in the stripe wave phase is a lattice effect, since continuum studies of the same phase have shown nonzero sound velocity.

Stability and quantum escape dynamics of spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates in the shallow trap.

The Bose-Einstein condensates in a finite depth potential well provide an ideal platform to study the quantum escape dynamics. In this paper, the ground state, tunneling, and diffusion dynamics of the spin-orbit coupling (SOC) of Bose-Einstein condensates with two pseudospin components in a shallow trap are studied analytically and numerically. The phase transition between the plane-wave phase and zero-momentum phase of the ground state is obtained. Furthermore, the stability of the ground state is discussed, and the stability diagram in the parameter space is provided. The bound state (in which condensates are stably trapped in the potential well), the quasibound state (in which condensates tunnel through the well), and the unstable state (in which diffusion occurs) are revealed. We find that the finite depth potential well has an important effect on the phase transition of the ground state, and, interestingly, SOC can stabilize the system against the diffusion and manipulate the tunneling and diffusion dynamics. In particular, spatial anisotropic tunneling and diffusion dynamics of the two pseudospin components induced by SOC in quasibound and unstable states are observed. We provide an effective model and method to study and control the quantum tunneling and diffusion dynamics.

Lattice configurations in spin-1 Bose–Einstein condensates with the SU(3) spin–orbit coupling**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11904242) and the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province, China (Grant No. A2019210280).

We consider the SU(3) spin–orbit coupled spin-1 Bose–Einstein condensates in a two-dimensional harmonic trap. The competition between the SU(3) spin–orbit coupling and the spin-exchange interaction results in a rich variety of lattice configurations. The ground-state phase diagram spanned by the isotropic SU(3) spin–orbit coupling and the spin–spin interaction is presented. Five ground-state phases can be identified on the phase diagram, including the plane wave phase, the stripe phase, the kagome lattice phase, the stripe-honeycomb lattice phase, and the honeycomb hexagonal lattice phase. The system undergoes a sequence of phase transitions from the rectangular lattice phase to the honeycomb hexagonal lattice phase, and to the triangular lattice phase in spin-1 Bose–Einstein condensates with anisotrpic SU(3) spin–orbit coupling.

Spatial Coherence of Spin-Orbit-Coupled Bose Gases.

Spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates (SOBECs) exhibit two new phases of matter, now known as the stripe and plane-wave phases. When two interacting spin components of a SOBEC spatially overlap, density modulations with periodicity given by the spin-orbit coupling strength appear. In equilibrium, these components fully overlap in the miscible stripe phase and overlap only in a domain wall in the immiscible plane-wave phase. Here we probe the density modulation present in any overlapping region with optical Bragg scattering and observe the sudden drop of Bragg scattering as the overlapping region shrinks. Using an atomic analog of the Talbot effect, we demonstrate the existence of long-range coherence between the different spin components in the stripe phase and surprisingly even in the phase-separated plane-wave phase.

Chiral Bloch oscillations of a biased bosonic ladder in an artificial gauge field

SynopsisRich chiral Bloch oscillations are predicted to distinguish the Meissner phase, Vortex phase and two new Plane Wave phases of the biased non-interacting bosonic ladder in an artificial gauge field.