Real space mean-field theory of a spin-1 Bose gas in synthetic dimensions

Published

December 15, 2016

Author(s)

Ian B. Spielman, Justin H. Wilson, Hilary Hurst, Jed Pixley, Stefan Natu

Abstract

The internal degrees of freedom provided by ultracold atoms give a route for realizing higher dimensional physics in systems with limited spatial dimensions. Non-spatial degrees of freedom in these systems are dubbed “synthetic dimensions”. This connection is useful from an experimental standpoint but complicated by the fact that interactions alter the condensate ground state. Here we use the Gross-Pitaevskii equation to study ground state properties of a spin-1 Bose gas under the combined influence of an optical lattice, spin-orbit coupling, and interactions at the mean field level. The associated phases depend on the sign of the spin-dependent interaction parameter and the optical lattice potential. We find “charge” and spin density wave phases which are directly related to helical spin order in real space and a↵ect the behavior of edge currents in the synthetic dimension. We determine the resulting phase diagram as a function of the spin-orbit coupling and spin dependent interaction strength, considering both attractive (ferromagnetic) and repulsive (polar) spin dependent interactions. Our results are applicable to current and future experiments, specifically with 87Rb, 7Li, 41K, and 23Na.

Citation

Physical Review A

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.94.063613

Keywords

Spin orbit coupling Bose Einstein condensate

Citation

Spielman, I. , Wilson, J. , Hurst, H. , Pixley, J. and Natu, S. (2016), Real space mean-field theory of a spin-1 Bose gas in synthetic dimensions, Physical Review A, [online], https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.94.063613 (Accessed October 8, 2025)