Multi-ring, stripe, and super-lattice solitons in a spin-orbit coupled spin-1 condensate

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the existence of various stable two-dimensional solitons in a spin-orbit coupled spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate, revealing new multi-ring, stripe, and superlattice structures depending on the strength of the coupling.

Contribution

It introduces the first theoretical prediction of stable multi-ring, stripe, and superlattice solitons in a spin-orbit coupled spin-1 BEC using the mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii framework.

Findings

Stable multi-ring solitons with vortices at weak SO coupling.

Superlattice and stripe solitons at intermediate and strong SO coupling.

Abstract

We demonstrate exotic stable quasi-two-dimensional solitons in a Rashba or a Dresselhaus spin-orbit (SO) coupled hyperfine spin-1 ($F=1$) trap-less antiferromagnetic Bose-Einstein condensate using the mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii equation. For weak SO coupling, the solitons are of the $(-1,0,+1)$ or $(+1,0,-1)$ type with intrinsic vorticity, for Rashba or Dresselhaus SO coupling, where the numbers in the parentheses denote angular momentum in spin components $F_z= +1,0,-1$, respectively. For intermediate SO coupling, the solitons have multi-ring structure maintaining the above-mentioned vortices in respective components. For larger SO coupling, superlattice solitons with a square-lattice structure in total density are found in addition to stripe solitons with stripe pattern in component densities with no periodic modulation in total density.