Light-induced localized vortices in multicomponent Bose-Einstein condensates

Abstract

We study continuous interaction of a trapped two-component Bose-Einstein condensate with light fields in a $\Lambda$-type configuration. Using light beams with orbital angular momentum, we theoretically show how to create a stable, pinned vortex configuration, where the rotating component is confined to the region surrounded by the second, non-rotating component. The atoms constituting this vortex can be localized in volumes much smaller than the volume occupied by the second component. We also show that the vortex position can be changed dynamically by moving the laser beams, provided the beams' movement speed remains below the speed of sound. This allows us to use the localized vortex to stir the second component, and to determine the superfluid flow's critical velocity.

13 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (27)

• Bose-Einstein condensation of atoms in a uniform potential
• Quantized Rotation of Atoms From Photons with Orbital Angular Momentum
• Motion of a heavy impurity through a Bose-Einstein condensate
• Superfluid behaviour of a two-dimensional Bose gas
• Slow light in degenerate Fermi gases
• Precision measurements of s-wave scattering lengths in a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate
• Coherent Quantum Optical Control with Subwavelength Resolution
• Quantum hydrodynamics
• The Vortex Phase Qubit: Generating Arbitrary, Counter-Rotating, Coherent Superpositions in Bose-Einstein Condensates via Optical Angular Momentum Beams
• Transfer and storage of vortex states in light and matter waves
• Sculpting the Vortex State of a Spinor BEC
• Effective magnetic fields in degenerate atomic gases induced by light beams with orbital angular momenta
• The critical velocity in the BEC-BCS crossover
• Nano-Scale `Dark State' Optical Potentials for Cold Atoms
• Controlling phase separation of a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate by confinement
• Subwavelength-width optical tunnel junctions for ultracold atoms
• Arbitrary Coherent Superpositions of Quantized Vortices in Bose-Einstein Condensates from Orbital Angular Momentum Beams of Light
• Probing superfluidity of Bose-Einstein condensates via laser stirring
• Mass-driven vortex collisions in flat superfluids
• Turbulent relaxation to equilibrium in a two-dimensional quantum vortex gas
• Superfluidity and relaxation dynamics of a laser-stirred 2D Bose gas
• Formation of solitons in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates by dark-state adiabatic passage
• Effective magnetic fields induced by EIT in ultra-cold atomic gases
• Spatially strongly confined atomic excitation via two dimensional stimulated Raman adiabatic passage
• Superfluidity of a laser-stirred Bose-Einstein condensate
• Quantum vortices in fermionic superfluids: from ultracold atoms to neutron stars
• Interference induced anisotropy in a two-dimensional dark state optical lattice

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Optical creation of dark-bright soliton lattices in one-dimensional multicomponent Bose-Einstein condensates
• Two dimensional sub-wavelength topological dark state lattices