We theoretically investigate a Bose-Einstein condensate confined by a rotating harmonic trap whose rotation axis is not aligned with any of its principal axes. The principal axes of the Thomas-Fermi density profiles of the resulting stationary solutions are found to be tilted with respect to those of the rotating trap, representing an extra degree of freedom that is associated with the existence of additional branches of stationary solutions for any given rotation axis alignment. By linearizing the time-dependent theory about the stationary states, we obtain a semi-analytical prediction of their dynamical instability at high rotation frequencies against collective modes arising from environmental perturbations. Comparing the stationary states to direct simulations of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, we predict the nucleation of quantum vortices in the dynamically unstable rotational regime. These vortex lines are aligned along the rotation axis despite the tilting of the rotating trap although the background density profile is tilted with respect to the trapping and rotation axes.
We consider quantized vortices in two-component Bose-Einstein condensates and three-component Fermi gases with attractive interactions. In these systems, the vortex core can be either empty (normal in the fermion case) or filled with another superfluid. We determine critical values of the parameters -- chemical potentials, scattering lengths and, for Fermi gases, temperature -- at which a phase transition between the two types of vortices occurs. Population imbalance can lead to superfluid core (coreless) vorticity in multicomponent superfluids which otherwise support only usual vortices. For …
Many-body dipolar effects in Fermi gases are quite subtle as they energetically compete with the large kinetic energy at and below the Fermi surface (FS). Recently it was experimentally observed that the FS is deformed from a sphere to an ellipsoid due to the presence of the anisotropic and long-range dipole-dipole interaction. Moreover, it was suggested that, when the dipoles are rotated by means of an external field, the FS follows their rotation, thereby keeping the major axis of the momentum-space ellipsoid parallel to the dipoles. Here we generalise a previous Hartree-Fock mean-field theo…
We consider a $^{168}$Er-$^{164}$Dy dipolar mixture, trapped by a cigar shaped harmonic potential. We derive the quasi-1D inter-species effective potential exhibiting the tilting angles and show that it is a quite natural generalization of the situation of a single dipolar gas. By solving the coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations, we observe a transition from miscible to immiscible mixture as the orientations of the magnetic moments are varied. The atom numbers are also shown to lead to noticeable effects on the mixture.
The effect of dipolar orientation with respect to the soliton plane on the physics of two-dimensional bright solitons in dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates is discussed. Previous studies on such a soliton involved dipoles either perpendicular or parallel to the condensate-plane. The tilting angle constitutes an additional tuning parameter, which help us to control the in-plane anisotropy of the soliton as well as provides access to previously disregarded regimes of interaction parameters for soliton stability. In addition, it can be used to drive the condensate into phonon instability without c…
Reconnections and interactions of filamentary coherent structures play a fundamental role in the dynamics of fluids, plasmas and nematic liquid crystals. In fluids, vortex reconnections redistribute energy and helicity among the length scales and induce fine-scale turbulent mixing. Unlike ordinary fluids where vorticity is a continuous field, in quantum fluids vorticity is concentrated into discrete (quantized) vortex lines turning vortex reconnections into isolated events, making it conceptually easier to study. Here we report experimental and numerical observations of three-dimensional quant…
A recent experimental realization of quantum degenerate gas of $^{40}$K$^{87}$Rb molecules opens up prospects of exploring strong dipolar Fermi gases and many-body phenomena arising in that regime. Here we derive a mean-field variational approach based on the Wigner function for the description of ground-state properties of such systems. We show that the stability of dipolar fermions in a general harmonic trap is universal as it only depends on the trap aspect ratios and the dipoles' orientation. We calculate the species-independent stability diagram and the deformation of the Fermi surface (F…
By developing the hydrodynamic theory of spinor superfluids we calculate the moment of inertia of a harmonically trapped Bose-Einstein condensate with spin-orbit coupling. We show that the velocity field associated with the rotation of the fluid exhibits diffused vorticity, in contrast to the irrotational behavior characterizing a superfluid. Both Raman-induced and Rashba spin-orbit couplings are considered. In the first case the moment of inertia takes the rigid value at the transition between the plane wave and the single minimum phase, while in the latter case the rigid value is achieved in…
We have employed the theory of harmonically trapped dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates to examine the influence of a uniform magnetic field that rotates at an arbitrary angle to its own orientation. This is achieved by semi-analytically solving the dipolar superfluid hydrodynamics of this system within the Thomas-Fermi approximation and by allowing the body frame of the condensate's density profile to be tilted with respect to the symmetry axes of the nonrotating harmonic trap. This additional degree of freedom manifests itself in the presence of previously unknown stationary solution branches …
The Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) or nonlinear Schrödinger equation relevant to ultracold atomic gaseous Bose-Einstein condensates possess a modified Schrödinger symmetry in two spatial dimensions, in the presence of a harmonic trapping potential, an (artificial) constant magnetic field (or rotation) and an electric field of a quadratic electrostatic potential. We find that a variance and a center of a trapped gas with or without a vorticity can be regarded as massive Nambu-Goldstone (NG) modes associated with spontaneous breaking of the modified Schrödinger symmetry. We show that the Noether theorem …
We consider a Bose-Einstein bicondensate (BEC) of $^{87}Rb$, trapped in two different internal levels, in a situation where the density undergoes a symmetry breaking in momentum space. This occurs for a suitable number of condensed atoms within a double well dispersion curve, obtained by Raman coupling two internal states with two tilted and detuned light fields. Evidence of bistability results from the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. By second quantization, we evaluate the tunneling rate between the two asymmetric states; the effects of losses on coherence are also considered.
We have studied a Bose-Einstein condensate of $^{87}Rb$ atoms under an oscillatory excitation. For a fixed frequency of excitation, we have explored how the values of amplitude and time of excitation must be combined in order to produce quantum turbulence in the condensate. Depending on the combination of these parameters different behaviors are observed in the sample. For the lowest values of time and amplitude of excitation, we observe a bending of the main axis of the cloud. Increasing the amplitude of excitation we observe an increasing number of vortices. The vortex state can evolve into …
The effect of dipolar orientation with respect to the condensate plane on the mean-field dynamics of dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates in a pancake-shaped confinement is discussed. The stability of a quasi-two-dimensional condensate, with respect to the tilting angle, is found to be different from a two-dimensional layer of dipoles, indicating the relevance of the transverse extension while characterizing two-dimensional dipolar systems. An anisotropic excitation spectrum exhibiting a highly tunable, rotonlike minimum can arise entirely from the dipole-dipole interactions, by tilting the dipol…
Stability and dynamical behavior of binary Bose-Einstein condensed mixtures trapped on the surface of a rigid spherical shell are investigated in the mean-field level, exploring the miscibility with and without vortex charges, considering repulsive and attractive interactions. In order to compute the critical points for the stability, we follow the Bogoliubov-de Gennes method for the analysis of perturbed solutions, with the constraint that initially the stationary states are in a complete miscible configuration. For the perturbed equal density mixture, of a homogeneous uniform gas and when hi…
Reconnections of coherent filamentary structures play a key role in the dynamics of fluids, redistributing energy and helicity among the length scales, triggering dissipative effects and inducing fine-scale mixing. Unlike ordinary (classical) fluids where vorticity is a continuous field, in superfluid helium and in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) vorticity takes the form of isolated quantised vortex lines, which are conceptually easier to study. New experimental techniques now allow visualisation of individual vortex reconnections in helium and condensates. It has long being suspected …
Dynamics of skyrmionic spin texture in the spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate is examined by analytical and numerical means. We show the skyrmion (coreless vortex) to be inherently unstable in the sense that the state initially prepared purely within the antiferromagnetic (ferromagnetic) order parameter manifold inevitably evolves into a mixture of both. The vorticity-dependent drift in the presence of the trapping potential also contributes to the disintegration of the initial spin texture manifold. We argue that the notion of a skyrmion as a topologically protected entity becomes ill defined du…
We consider the ground-state properties of the two-component spin-orbit coupled ultracold bosons subject to a rotationally symmetric in-plane gradient magnetic field. In the non-interacting case, the ground state supports giant-vortices carrying large angular momenta without rotating the trap. The vorticity is highly tunable by varying the amplitudes and orientations of the magnetic field. Interactions drive the system from a giant-vortex state to various configurations of vortex lattice states along a ring. Vortices exhibit ellipse-shaped envelops with the major and minor axes determined by t…
We theoretically examine the vortex states of a gas of trapped quasi-two-dimensional ultracold bosons subject to a density-dependent gauge potential, realizing an effective nonlinear rotation of the atomic condensate, which we also show is within the reach of current experimental techniques with ultracold atom experiments. The nonlinear rotation has a two-fold effect; as well as distorting the shape of the condensate it also leads to an inhomogeneous vorticity resulting in novel morphological and topological states, including ring vortex arrangements that do not follow the standard Abrikosov r…
We report detailed investigation of the existence and stability of mixed and demixed modes in binary atomic Bose-Einstein condensates with repulsive interactions in a ring-trap geometry. The stability of such states is examined through eigenvalue spectra for small perturbations, produced by the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations, and directly verified by simulations based on the coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations, varying inter- and intra-species scattering lengths so as to probe the entire range of miscibility-immiscibility transitions. In the limit of the one-dimensional (1D) ring, i.e., a very …
The equilibrium configurations of neutron superfluid vortices interacting with proton superconductor flux tubes in a rotating, harmonic trap are non-trivial in general, when the magnetorotational symmetry is broken. A non-zero angle $θ$ between the magnetic and rotation axes leads to tangled vorticity due to competition between vortex-vortex repulsion and vortex-flux-tube pinning. Here we investigate the far-from-equilibrium behaviour of the vortices, as the trap decelerates, by solving the time-dependent, stochastic, Gross-Pitaevskii equation numerically in three dimensions. The numerical sim…
The dynamics of interacting quantized vortex filaments in a rotating trapped Bose-Einstein condensate, which is in the Thomas-Fermi regime at zero temperature and described by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, is considered in the hydrodynamic "anelastic" approximation. In the presence of a smoothly inhomogeneous array of filaments (vortex lattice), a non-canonical Hamiltonian equation of motion is derived for the macroscopically averaged vorticity, with taking into account the spatial non-uniformity of the equilibrium condensate density determined by the trap potential. A minimum of the correspo…
In a recent study we demonstrated the emergence of turbulence in a trapped Bose-Einstein condensate of Rb-87 atoms. An intriguing observation in such a system is the behavior of the turbulent cloud during free expansion.The aspect ratio of the cloud size does not change in the way one would expect for an ordinary non-rotating (vortex-free) condensate. Here we show that the anomalous expansion can be understood, at least qualitatively, in terms of the presence of vorticity distributed throughout the cloud, effectively counteracting the usual reversal of the aspect ratio seen in free time-of-fli…
