Solitons in a trapped spin-1 atomic condensate

TL;DR

This paper numerically studies stable spin solitons in a trapped ferromagnetic spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate, revealing their dynamics, stability, and relation to domain structures, with implications for understanding spinor BECs.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed numerical analysis of spin solitons in a trapped spin-1 BEC, highlighting their stability and connection to domain structures, and discusses a rotating frame simplifying their dynamics.

Findings

Solitonic wave functions are stable within the mean field approximation.

The solitonic dynamics are closely related to domain structures in the condensate.

A rotating frame renders the local spin distribution dynamics time-independent.

Abstract

We numerically investigate a particular type of spin solitons inside a trapped atomic spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) with ferromagnetic interactions. Within the mean field theory approximation, our study of the solitonic dynamics shows that the solitonic wave function, its center of mass motion, and the local spin evolutions are stable and are intimately related to the domain structures studied recently in spin-1 $^{87}$Rb condensates. We discuss a rotating reference frame wherein the dynamics of the solitonic local spatial spin distribution become time independent.