Creating superfluid vortex rings in artificial magnetic fields

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a method to generate superfluid vortex rings in Bose-Einstein condensates using artificial gauge fields created by evanescent fields of optical nanofibres, enabling controlled vortex formation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to produce vortex rings via artificial gauge fields from nanofibre evanescent fields, expanding control over superfluid vortex dynamics.

Findings

Vortex rings can be generated in BECs using nanofibre-induced gauge fields.

Different fibre modes produce varying magnetic field configurations.

The method allows controlled creation of vortex structures in superfluids.

Abstract

Artificial gauge fields are versatile tools that allow to influence the dynamics of ultracold atoms in Bose-Einstein condensates. Here we discuss a method of artificial gauge field generation stemming from the evanescent fields of the curved surface of an optical nanofibre. The exponential decay of the evanescent fields leads to large gradients in the generalized Rabi frequency and therefore to the presence of geometric vector and scalar potentials. By solving the Gross-Pitaevskii equation in the presence of the artificial gauge fields originating from the fundamental HE$_{11}$ mode of the fibre, we show that vortex rings can be created in a controlled manner. We also calculate the magnetic fields resulting from the higher order HE$_{21}$, TE$_{01}$, and TM$_{01}$ modes and compare them to the fundamental HE$_{11}$ mode.