TY - JOUR

T1 - Energetically stable singular vortex cores in an atomic spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate

AU - Lovegrove, Justin

AU - Borgh, Magnus O.

AU - Ruostekoski, Janne

PY - 2012/7/12

Y1 - 2012/7/12

N2 - We analyze the structure and stability of singular singly quantized vortices in a rotating spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate. We show that the singular vortex can be energetically stable in both the ferromagnetic and polar phases despite the existence of a lower-energy nonsingular coreless vortex in the ferromagnetic phase. The spin-1 system exhibits energetic hierarchy of length scales resulting from different interaction strengths and we find that the vortex cores deform to a larger size determined by the characteristic length scale of the spin-dependent interaction. We show that in the ferromagnetic phase the resulting stable core structure, despite apparent complexity, can be identified as a single polar core with everywhere nonvanishing axially symmetric density profile. In the polar phase, the energetically favored core deformation leads to a splitting of a singly quantized vortex into a pair of half-quantum vortices that preserves the topology of the vortex outside the extended core region, but breaks the axial symmetry of the core. The resulting half-quantum vortices exhibit nonvanishing ferromagnetic cores.

AB - We analyze the structure and stability of singular singly quantized vortices in a rotating spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate. We show that the singular vortex can be energetically stable in both the ferromagnetic and polar phases despite the existence of a lower-energy nonsingular coreless vortex in the ferromagnetic phase. The spin-1 system exhibits energetic hierarchy of length scales resulting from different interaction strengths and we find that the vortex cores deform to a larger size determined by the characteristic length scale of the spin-dependent interaction. We show that in the ferromagnetic phase the resulting stable core structure, despite apparent complexity, can be identified as a single polar core with everywhere nonvanishing axially symmetric density profile. In the polar phase, the energetically favored core deformation leads to a splitting of a singly quantized vortex into a pair of half-quantum vortices that preserves the topology of the vortex outside the extended core region, but breaks the axial symmetry of the core. The resulting half-quantum vortices exhibit nonvanishing ferromagnetic cores.

U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevA.86.013613

DO - 10.1103/PhysRevA.86.013613

M3 - Journal article

VL - 86

JO - Physical review a

JF - Physical review a

SN - 1050-2947

IS - 1

M1 - 013613

ER -