Spin mixing in colliding spinor condensates: formation of an effective barrier

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a small initial population of m=0 atoms in a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate can act as an effective barrier, significantly affecting the mixing dynamics of the system due to spinor interactions.

Contribution

It demonstrates that spinor interactions create an observable effective barrier, influencing the macroscopic magnetization dynamics in spinor condensates.

Findings

Small m=0 seed delays mixing of m=±1 components

Spinor character causes long-lived effective barrier

Internal spin dynamics strongly influence condensate evolution

Abstract

The dynamics of F=1 spinor condensates initially prepared in a double-well potential is studied in the mean field approach. It is shown that a small seed of $m=0$ atoms on a system with initially well separated m=1 and m=-1 condensates has a dramatic effect on their mixing dynamics, acting as an effective barrier for a remarkably long time. We show that this effect is due to the spinor character of the system, and provides an observable example of the interplay between the internal spin dynamics and the macroscopic evolution of the magnetization in a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate.