Universal dynamics of zero-momentum to plane-wave transition in spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensates

TL;DR

This paper studies the universal dynamics during the phase transition in spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensates, revealing critical exponents and domain formation consistent with the Kibble-Zurek mechanism.

Contribution

It provides a numerical and analytical analysis of the critical exponents and domain formation during the phase transition in spin-orbit coupled BECs.

Findings

Critical velocity vanishes at the transition point.

Correlation length diverges at the critical point.

Numerical critical exponents match analytical predictions.

Abstract

We investigate the universal spatiotemporal dynamics in spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensates which are driven from the zero-momentum phase to the plane-wave phase. The excitation spectrum reveals that, at the critical point, the Landau critical velocity vanishes and the correlation length diverges. Therefore, according to the Kibble-Zurek mechanism, spatial domains will spontaneously appear in such a quench through the critical point. By simulating the real-time dynamics, we numerically extract the static correlation length critical exponent v and the dynamic critical exponent z from the scalings of the temporal bifurcation delay and the spatial domain number. The numerical scalings consist well with the analytical ones obtained by analyzing the excitation spectrum.