Enhancement of condensate depletion due to spin-orbit coupling

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that spin-orbit coupling significantly increases condensate depletion in three-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates, with different SOC types affecting depletion behavior and causing potential divergences at finite temperatures.

Contribution

It reveals how various types of spin-orbit coupling qualitatively alter condensate depletion and predicts divergence phenomena near isotropic limits.

Findings

SOC enhances quantum and thermal depletion

Depletion depends on SOC anisotropy and type

Thermal depletion diverges logarithmically near isotropic limit

Abstract

We show that spin-orbit coupling (SOC) significantly enhances the depletion of a homogeneous Bose-Einstein condensate in three dimensions. With decreasing anisotropy of the SOC, both the quantum and thermal depletion increase. In particular, different types of SOC give rise to qualitatively different dependences of the condensate depletion on microscopic variables including the scattering length, the strength of the SOC, and the temperature, which can be directly observed once these types of SOC are realized in experiments. Moreover, we point out that thermal depletion in three dimensions becomes logarithmically divergent at any given finite temperature when both the SOC and the interaction approach the isotropic limit.