Hysteresis loops in spinor BECs subject to synthetic gauge fields

TL;DR

This paper investigates the hysteretic behavior of spinor Bose-Einstein condensates in ring geometries under synthetic magnetic fields, revealing the roles of domain walls and spin-orbit coupling in flux dynamics and phase transitions.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of hysteresis in spinor BECs with synthetic gauge fields, highlighting the influence of domain walls and spin-orbit coupling on flux and phase transitions.

Findings

Domain walls drive hysteresis via flux changes.

Hysteresis occurs around phase transitions with metastable states.

Spin-orbit coupling affects hysteresis behavior.

Abstract

We explore the hysteretic dynamics of spinor Bose-Einstein condensates of ultracold atoms loaded in static 2D ring geometries and subjected to varying synthetic magnetic fields. Electrically neutral, pseudo-spin-$1/2$ condensates are probed by one-component weak-link potentials that make available paths for the transit of vortices into and out of the ring in both components, and thus can control the number of flux quanta threading the ring hole. For perpendicular fields, domain walls that are dynamically generated in the relative phase of the spin components are shown to play a key role in driving the hysteretic behaviour of the whole system through changes in the net magnetic flux. In the presence of spin-orbit-coupling, hysteresis is exhibited around the phase transitions found by the metastable current states for varying fields.