Multi-component states for trapped spin-1 Bose-Einstein Condensates in the presence of magnetic field

TL;DR

This paper develops an improved variational method to accurately describe multi-component ground states of trapped spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates in magnetic fields, surpassing the limitations of the Thomas-Fermi approximation.

Contribution

The authors extend a variational approach to better analyze multi-component states in spin-1 BECs, providing more accurate results than the single-mode approximation.

Findings

Variational method effectively identifies multi-component ground states.

Marked improvement over single-mode approximation in accuracy.

Substantial shift in phase boundary between phase-matched and polar states.

Abstract

In presence of a magnetic field, multi-component ground states appear in trapped spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates for both ferromagnetic and anti-ferromagnetic types of spin-spin interaction. We aim to produce an accurate analytical description of the multi-component states which is of fundamental importance. Despite being in the so-called regime of Thomas-Fermi approximation (condensates with large particle number), the scenario of multi-component states is problematic under this approximation due to large variation in densities of the sub-components. We generalize the variational method that we have introduced in the article [Eur. Phys. J. Plus 137, 547 (2022)] to overcome the limitations of T-F approximation. We demonstrate that the variational method is crucial in identifying multi-component ground states. A comparison of the results of the variational method, which is multi-modal by construction, with that of single-mode approximation is also presented in this paper to demonstrate a marked improvement in accuracy over single-mode approximation. We have also looked into the phase transition between the phase-matched and polar state in a trapped condensate using the variational method and have identified substantial change in the phase boundary. The correspondence of the phase diagram of the trapped case with the homogeneous one identifies other limitations of T-F approximation as opposed to the more accurate variational method.