Helical spin textures in dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates

TL;DR

This paper investigates helical spin textures in dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates, revealing two distinct topological configurations and analyzing their stability through numerical solutions of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed numerical study of helical spin textures in dipolar BECs, identifying two types of topological defects and their stability conditions.

Findings

Two distinct helical spin textures identified

Spin structure with Mermin-Ho vortices stabilized at nonzero wave vector

Analysis of topological defect configurations in dipolar BECs

Abstract

We numerically study elongated helical spin textures in ferromagnetic spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates subject to dipolar interparticle forces. Stationary states of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation are solved and analyzed for various values of the helical wave vector and dipolar coupling strength. We find two helical spin textures which differ by the nature of their topological defects. The spin structure hosting a pair of Mermin-Ho vortices with opposite mass flows and aligned spin currents is stabilized for a nonzero value of the helical wave vector.