Moving obstacle potential in a spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensate

TL;DR

This paper explores how a moving obstacle affects a spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensate, revealing that the system's response depends on obstacle velocity, direction, spin-orbit strength, and obstacle size through numerical and analytical methods.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of obstacle-induced excitations in a spin-orbit-coupled BEC, highlighting the directional dependence and critical velocities influenced by system parameters.

Findings

Excitation dynamics depend on obstacle velocity and direction.

Critical velocity varies with spin-orbit coupling strength.

The size of the obstacle influences the excitation threshold.

Abstract

We investigate the dynamics around an obstacle potential moving in the plane-wave state of a pseudospin-$1/2$ Bose-Einstein condensate with Rashba spin-orbit coupling. We numerically investigate the dynamics of the system and find that it depends not only on the velocity of the obstacle but also significantly on the direction of obstacle motion, which are verified by a Bogoliubov analysis. The excitation diagram with respect to the velocity and direction is obtained. The dependence of the critical velocity on the strength of the spin-orbit coupling and the size of the obstacle is also investigated.