Immiscibile two-component Bose Einstein condensates beyond mean-field approximation: phase transitions and rotational response

Abstract

We consider a two-component immiscible Bose-Einstein condensate with dominating intra-species repulsive density-density interactions. In the ground-state phase of such a system only one condensates is present. This can be viewed as a spontaneous breakdown of ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ symmetry. We study the phase diagram of the system at finite temperature beyond mean-field approximation. In the absence of rotation, we show that the system undergoes a first order phase transition from this ground state to a miscible two-component normal fluid as temperature is increased. In the presence of rotation, the system features a competition between vortex-vortex interaction and short range density-density interactions. This leads to a rotation-driven "mixing" phase transition in a spatially inhomogeneous state with additional broken $\mathrm{U}(1)$ symmetry. Thermal fluctuations in this state lead to nematic two-component sheets of vortex liquids. At sufficiently strong inter-component interaction, we find that the superfluid and ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ phase transitions split. This results in the formation of an intermediate state which breaks only ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ symmetry. It represents two phase separated normal fluids with density imbalance.

13 pages, 12 figures, 41 references. Submitted to Physical Review