Solitons in Bose-Einstein Condensates with Helicoidal Spin-Orbit Coupling

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the existence and stability of moving solitons in a Bose-Einstein condensate with helicoidal spin-orbit coupling, revealing integrable-like properties and inelastic collisions influenced by Zeeman splitting.

Contribution

It introduces stable propagating solitons in a spatially inhomogeneous BEC with helicoidal spin-orbit coupling, including exact solutions and analysis of their interactions.

Findings

Stable moving solitons exist despite inhomogeneity.

Exact four-parametric soliton solutions are found in the absence of Zeeman splitting.

Soliton collisions are elastic without Zeeman splitting and inelastic with it.

Abstract

We report on the existence and stability of freely moving solitons in a spatially inhomogeneous Bose- Einstein condensate with helicoidal spin-orbit (SO) coupling. In spite of the periodically varying parameters, the system allows for the existence of stable propagating solitons. Such states are found in the rotating frame, where the helicoidal SO coupling is reduced to a homogeneous one. In the absence of the Zeeman splitting, the coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations describing localized states feature many properties of the integrable systems. In particular, four-parametric families of solitons can be obtained in the exact form. Such solitons interact elastically. Zeeman splitting still allows for the existence of two families of moving solitons, but makes collisions of solitons inelastic.