Singular and regular vortices on top of a background pulled to the center

TL;DR

This paper investigates singular and regular vortex states in Bose-Einstein condensates and optical systems, revealing their stability, excitation methods, and complex stability patterns under various potential configurations.

Contribution

It introduces physically relevant antidark singular-vortex states on a flat background and analyzes their stability and excitation, extending understanding of vortex dynamics in nonlinear systems.

Findings

Singular vortices can be excited from nonsingular vortices experimentally.

Dark vortices with l=0 and l=1 are completely stable.

Complex stability and instability patterns are found for vortices with l=1 and l=2.

Abstract

A recent analysis has revealed singular but physically relevant 2D localized vortex states with density ~ 1/r^{4/3} at r --> 0 and a convergent total norm, which are maintained by the interplay of the potential of the attraction to the center, ~ -1/r^2, and a self-repulsive quartic nonlinearity, produced by the Lee-Huang-Yang correction to the mean-field dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates. In optics, a similar setting, with the density singularity ~ 1/r, is realized with the help of quintic self-defocusing. Here we present physically relevant antidark singular-vortex states in these systems, existing on top of a flat background. Numerical solutions for them are very accurately approximated by the Thomas-Fermi wave function. Their stability exactly obeys an analytical criterion derived for small perturbations. It is demonstrated that the singular vortices can be excited by the input in the form of ordinary nonsingular vortices, hence the singular modes can be created in the experiment. We also consider regular (dark) vortices maintained by the flat background, under the action of the repulsive central potential ~ +1/r^2. The dark modes with vorticities l = 0 and l = 1 are completely stable. In the case when the central potential is attractive, but the effective one, which includes the centrifugal term, is repulsive, and a weak trapping potential ~ r^2 is added, dark vortices with l = 1 feature an intricate pattern of alternating stability and instability regions. Under the action of the instability, states with l = 1 travel along tangled trajectories, which stay in a finite area defined by the trap. The analysis is also reported for dark vortices with l = 2, which feature a complex structure of alternating intervals of stability and instability against splitting. Lastly, simple but novel flat vortices are found at the border between the anidark and dark ones.