Optical-plug-assisted spin vortex in a $^{87}$Rb dipolar spinor Bose-Einstein condensate

TL;DR

This paper proposes a simple, tunable method to generate and study spin vortices in a $^{87}$Rb dipolar spinor Bose-Einstein condensate using an optical plug, facilitating experimental exploration of topological phase transitions.

Contribution

It introduces an experimentally feasible approach to create and control spin vortices via optical plugging, enabling detailed study of topological phase transitions in dipolar BECs.

Findings

A topological phase transition from trivial to vortex phase is achieved by tuning the optical plug parameters.

The optical plug induces radial density variations that favor spin vortex formation.

A novel coreless spin vortex different from conventional types is predicted.

Abstract

Generating a spin vortex in a $^{87}$Rb dipolar spinor Bose-Einstein condensate in a controllable way is still experimentally challenging. We propose an experimentally easy and tunable way to produce spin vortex by varying the potential barrier height and the width of an additionally applied optical plug. A topological phase transition occurs from the trivial single mode approximation phase to the optical-plug-assisted-vortex one, as the barrier height increases and the width lies in an appropriate range. The optical plug causes radial density variation thus the spin vortex is favored by significantly lowering the intrinsic magnetic dipolar energy. A type of coreless spin vortex, different from the conventional polar core vortex, is predicted by our numerical results. Our proposal removes a major obstacle to investigate the topological phase transition in a $^{87}$Rb dipolar spinor BEC.