Quenching dynamics of vortex in spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensates

TL;DR

This paper explores the dynamics of vortices in spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensates under position-dependent detuning, revealing complex vortex behaviors and stability influenced by synthetic magnetic fields.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed numerical analysis of vortex lattice structures and their dynamic responses to detuning quenches in spin-orbit coupled BECs, highlighting novel vortex behaviors.

Findings

Vortex lattices exhibit periodic rotation and stability for up to 1000ms.

Detuning gradients cause twin vortices to oscillate or rotate periodically.

Additional vortices emerge when quenching the detuning gradient beyond initial values.

Abstract

We investigate the ground states and rich dynamics of vortices in spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) subject to position-dependent detuning. Such a detuning plays the role of an effective rotational frequency, causing the generation of a synthetic magnetic field. Through scanning the detuning gradient, we numerically obtain static vortex lattice structures containing 1 to 6 vortices using the coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations. When quenching detuning gradient below its initial value, the vortex lattices exhibit interesting periodic rotation motion, and their dynamical stability can persist for up to 1000ms. In particular, depending on the detuning gradient, the twin vortices exhibit either a scissors-like rotational oscillation or a clockwise periodic rotation, reflecting the response to the magnetic field gradient experienced by the condensates. We fit the numerical results to quantitatively analyze the relation between rotation dynamics and magnetic field gradients. When quenching the detuning gradient beyond its initial value, additional vortices appear. Our findings may motivate further experimental studies of vortex dynamics in synthetic magnetic fields and offer insights for engineering a BEC-based magnetic field gradiometer.