Spontaneous magnetization and structure formation in a spin-1 ferromagnetic Bose-Einstein condensate

TL;DR

This paper investigates how spontaneous magnetization arises in a spin-1 ferromagnetic Bose-Einstein condensate, revealing the formation of diverse spin structures influenced by interactions and trap geometry.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical explanation for the emergence of various spin structures in a spin-1 ferromagnetic BEC, considering spin conservation and interaction effects.

Findings

Formation of staggered magnetic domains

Development of helical and ring structures

Dependence on trapping potential geometry

Abstract

Motivated by recent experiments involving the non-destructive imaging of magnetization of a spin-1 87Rb Bose gas (Higbie et al., cond-mat/0502517), we address the question of how the spontaneous magnetization of a ferromagnetic BEC occurs in a spin-conserving system. Due to competition between the ferromagnetic interaction and the total spin conservation, various spin structures such as staggered magnetic domains, and helical and concentric ring structures are formed, depending on the geometry of the trapping potential.