Supersolidity of cnoidal waves in an ultracold Bose gas

TL;DR

This paper investigates cnoidal waves in a one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate, demonstrating their potential as non-equilibrium supersolid states with unique excitation spectra and superfluid properties.

Contribution

It provides analytical derivations of superfluid fraction, excitation spectrum, and static structure factor for cnoidal waves, highlighting their supersolid characteristics.

Findings

Identification of two Goldstone modes at large wavelengths.

Analytical expressions for superfluid fraction and excitation spectrum.

Divergent static structure factor at Brillouin zone edges.

Abstract

A one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate may experience nonlinear periodic modulations known as "cnoidal waves". We argue that such structures represent promising candidates for the study of supersolidity-related phenomena in a non-equilibrium state. A mean-field treatment makes it possible to rederive Leggett's formula for the superfluid fraction of the system and to estimate it analytically. We determine the excitation spectrum, for which we obtain analytical results in the two opposite limiting cases of (i) a linearly modulated background and (ii) a train of dark solitons. The presence of two Goldstone (gapless) modes -- associated with the spontaneous breaking of $\mathrm{U}(1)$ symmetry and of continuous translational invariance -- at large wavelength is verified. We also calculate the static structure factor and the compressibility of cnoidal waves, which show a divergent behavior at the edges of each Brillouin zone.