Stability and dynamics across magnetic phases of vortex-bright type excitations in spinor Bose-Einstein condensates

TL;DR

This paper investigates the stability, dynamics, and pattern formation of vortex-bright excitations in spinor Bose-Einstein condensates, revealing how phase transitions and temperature affect their behavior and stability.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of vortex-bright excitations' stability and dynamics in spinor BECs, including effects of phase transitions and temperature, which was not previously explored.

Findings

Stable vortex-bright solutions exist in both antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic gases.

Quenching the quadratic Zeeman energy induces pattern formation and spin-mixing.

Finite temperature causes elongations, precession, and spiraling of excitations.

Abstract

The static properties, i.e., existence and stability, as well as the quench-induced dynamics of vortex-bright type excitations in two-dimensional harmonically confined spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates are investigated. Linearly stable vortex-bright-vortex and bright-vortex-bright solutions arise in both antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic spinor gases upon quadratic Zeeman energy shift variations. Their deformations across the relevant transitions are exposed and discussed in detail evincing also that emergent instabilities can lead to pattern formation. Spatial elongations, precessional motion and spiraling of the nonlinear excitations when exposed to finite temperatures and upon crossing the distinct phase boundaries, via quenching of the quadratic Zeeman coefficient, are unveiled. Spin-mixing processes triggered by the quench lead, among others, to changes in the waveform of the ensuing configurations. Our findings reveal an interplay between pattern formation and spin-mixing processes being accessible in contemporary cold atom experiments.