Symmetry breaking in binary Bose-Einstein condensates in the presence of an inhomogeneous artificial gauge field

TL;DR

This paper investigates how an inhomogeneous artificial gauge field induces symmetry breaking and vortex lattice formation in a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate, combining numerical and analytical models.

Contribution

It introduces a simplified energy landscape model to explain symmetry breaking and phase separation in BECs under inhomogeneous gauge fields, supported by analytical Thomas-Fermi analysis.

Findings

Formation of localized vortex lattice structures

Symmetry breaking in phase-separated regimes

Agreement between simplified and analytical models

Abstract

We study a two component Bose-Einstein condensate in the presence of an inhomogeneous artificial gauge field. In response to this field, the condensate forms a localised vortex lattice structure that leads to a non-trivial symmetry breaking in the phase separated regime. The underlying physical mechanism can be understood by considering the energy landscape and we present a simplified model that is capable of reproducing the main features of the phase separation transition. The intuition gained by numerically solving this simplified model is then corroborated using the analytical Thomas-Fermi model.