Observation of Topologically Stable 2D Skyrmions in an Antiferromagnetic Spinor Bose-Einstein Condensate

TL;DR

This paper reports the creation and observation of topologically stable 2D Skyrmions in an antiferromagnetic spinor Bose-Einstein condensate, highlighting their stability, decay dynamics, and potential formation of half-quantum vortices.

Contribution

It demonstrates the experimental creation and real-time evolution of 2D Skyrmions in a spinor BEC, revealing their stability and decay mechanisms.

Findings

Skyrmions are topologically protected in the condensate.

Skyrmions remain stable for tens of milliseconds before deforming.

Decay involves breaking the polar phase without topological charge flow.

Abstract

We present the creation and time evolution of two-dimensional Skyrmion excitations in an antiferromagnetic spinor Bose-Einstein condensate. Using a spin rotation method, the Skyrmion spin textures were imprinted on a sodium condensate in a polar phase, where the two-dimensional Skyrmion is topologically protected. The Skyrmion was observed to be stable on a short time scale of a few tens of ms but to have dynamical instability to deform its shape and eventually decay to a uniform spin texture. The deformed spin textures reveal that the decay dynamics involves breaking the polar phase inside the condensate without having topological charge density flow through the boundary of the finite-sized sample. We discuss the possible formation of half-quantum vortices in the deformation process.