Topological Excitations in Spinor Bose-Einstein Condensates

We investigate the properties of skyrmion in the ferromagnetic state of spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates by means of the mean-field theory and show that the size of skyrmion is fixed to the order of the healing length. It is shown that the interaction between two skyrmions with oppositely rotating spin textures is attractive when their separation is large, following a unique power-law behavior with a power of -7/2.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Temperature-dependent relaxation times in a trapped Bose-condensed gas

Explicit expressions for all the transport coefficients have recently been found for a trapped Bose condensed gas at finite temperatures. These transport coefficients are used to define the characteristic relaxation times, which determine the crossover between the mean-field collisionless and the two-fluid hydrodynamic regime. These relaxation times are evaluated as a function of the position in the trap potential. We show that all the relaxation times are dominated by the collisions between the condensate and the non-condensate atoms, and are much smaller than the standard classical collision time used in most of the current literature. The 1998 MIT study of the collective modes at finite temperature is shown to have been well within the two-fluid hydrodynamic regime.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Exotic magnetic orders for high spin ultracold fermions

We study Hubbard models for ultracold bosonic or fermionic atoms loaded into an optical lattice. The atoms carry a high spin $F>1/2$, and interact on site via strong repulsive Van der Waals forces. Making convenient rearrangements of the interaction terms, and exploiting their symmetry properties, we derive low energy effective models with nearest-neighbor interactions, and their properties. We apply our method to $F=3/2$, and 5/2 fermions on two-dimensional square lattice at quarter, and 1/6 fillings, respectively, and investigate mean-field equations for repulsive couplings. We find for $F=3/2$ fermions that the plaquette state appearing in the highly symmetric SU(4) case does not require fine tuning, and is stable in an extended region of the phase diagram. This phase competes with an SU(2) flux state, that is always suppressed for repulsive interactions in absence of external magnetic field. The SU(2) flux state has, however, lower energy than the plaquette phase, and stabilizes in the presence of weak applied magnetic field. For $F=5/2$ fermions a similar SU(2) plaquette phase is found to be the ground state without external magnetic field.Comment: final version, 6 pages, 4 figures, epl forma

Internal Vortex Structure of a Trapped Spinor Bose-Einstein Condensate

The internal vortex structure of a trapped spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate is investigated. It is shown that it has a variety of configurations depending on, in particular, the ratio of the relevant scattering lengths and the total magnetization.Comment: replacement; minor grammatical corrections but with additional figure

Mean field ground state of a spin-1 condensate in a magnetic field

We revisit the topic of the mean field ground state of a spin-1 atomic condensate inside a uniform magnetic field ($B$) under the constraints that both the total number of atoms ($N$) and the magnetization ($\cal M$) are conserved. In the presence of an internal state (spin component) independent trap, we also investigate the dependence of the so-called single spatial mode approximation (SMA) on the magnitude of the magnetic field and ${\cal M}$. Our result indicate that the quadratic Zeeman effect is an important factor in balancing the mean field energy from elastic atom-atom collisions that are known to conserve both $N$ and $\cal M$.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, to be published in New J. Phys. (http://www.njp.org/

Skyrmions in a ferromagnetic Bose-Einstein condensate

The recently realized multicomponent Bose-Einstein condensates provide opportunities to explore the rich physics brought about by the spin degrees of freedom. For instance, we can study spin waves and phase separation, macroscopic quantum tunneling, Rabi oscillations, the coupling between spin gradients and superfluid flow, squeezed spin states, vortices and other topological excitations. Theoretically, there have been already some studies of the ground-state properties of these systems and their line-like vortex excitations. In analogy with nuclear physics or the quantum Hall effect, we explore here the possibility of observing point-like topological excitations or skyrmions. These are nontrivial spin textures that in principle can exist in a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate. In particular, we investigate the stability of skyrmions in a fictitious spin-1/2 condensate of Rb87 atoms. We find that skyrmions can exist in this case only as a metastable state, but with a lifetime of the order of, or even longer than, the typical lifetime of the condensate itself. In addition to determining the size and the lifetime of the skyrmion, we also present its spin texture and finally briefly consider its dynamical properties.Comment: 4 pages (REVtex), 3 PDF figures. See also cond-mat/000237

Spinor Bose Condensates in Optical Traps

In an optical trap, the ground state of spin-1 Bosons such as $^{23}$Na, $^{39}$K, and $^{87}$Rb can be either a ferromagnetic or a "polar" state, depending on the scattering lengths in different angular momentum channel. The collective modes of these states have very different spin character and spatial distributions. While ordinary vortices are stable in the polar state, only those with unit circulation are stable in the ferromagnetic state. The ferromagnetic state also has coreless (or Skyrmion) vortices like those of superfluid $^{3}$He-A. Current estimates of scattering lengths suggest that the ground states of $^{23}$Na and $^{87}$Rb condensate are a polar state and a ferromagnetic state respectively.Comment: 11 pages, no figures. email : [email protected]

Exact Eigenstates and Magnetic Response of Spin-1 and Spin-2 Vectorial Bose-Einstein Condensates

The exact eigenspectra and eigenstates of spin-1 and spin-2 vectorial Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) are found, and their response to a weak magnetic field is studied and compared with their mean-field counterparts. Whereas mean-field theory predicts the vanishing population of the zero magnetic-quantum-number component of a spin-1 antiferromagnetic BEC, the component is found to become populated as the magnetic field decreases. The spin-2 BEC exhibits an even richer magnetic response due to quantum correlation between 3 bosons.Comment: 5 pages, no figures. LaTeX20

How to fix a broken symmetry: Quantum dynamics of symmetry restoration in a ferromagnetic Bose-Einstein condensate

We discuss the dynamics of a quantum phase transition in a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate when it is driven from the magnetized broken-symmetry phase to the unmagnetized ``symmetric'' polar phase. We determine where the condensate goes out of equilibrium as it approaches the critical point, and compute the condensate magnetization at the critical point. This is done within a quantum Kibble-Zurek scheme traditionally employed in the context of symmetry-breaking quantum phase transitions. Then we study the influence of the nonequilibrium dynamics near a critical point on the condensate magnetization. In particular, when the quench stops at the critical point, nonlinear oscillations of magnetization occur. They are characterized by a period and an amplitude that are inversely proportional. If we keep driving the condensate far away from the critical point through the unmagnetized ``symmetric'' polar phase, the amplitude of magnetization oscillations slowly decreases reaching a non-zero asymptotic value. That process is described by the equation that can be mapped onto the classical mechanical problem of a particle moving under the influence of harmonic and ``anti-friction'' forces whose interplay leads to surprisingly simple fixed-amplitude oscillations. We obtain several scaling results relating the condensate magnetization to the quench rate, and verify numerically all analytical predictions.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, final version accepted in NJP (slight changes with respect to the former submission