Stable Solitons in Three Dimensional Free Space without the Ground State: Self-Trapped Bose-Einstein Condensates with Spin-Orbit Coupling

Yong Chang Zhang, Zheng Wei Zhou, Boris A. Malomed, Han Pu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

154 Scopus citations

Abstract

By means of variational methods and systematic numerical analysis, we demonstrate the existence of metastable solitons in three dimensional (3D) free space, in the context of binary atomic condensates combining contact self-attraction and spin-orbit coupling, which can be engineered by available experimental techniques. Depending on the relative strength of the intra- and intercomponent attraction, the stable solitons feature a semivortex or mixed-mode structure. In spite of the fact that the local cubic self-attraction gives rise to the supercritical collapse in 3D, and hence the setting produces no true ground state, the solitons are stable against small perturbations, motion, and collisions.

Original languageEnglish
Article number253902
JournalPhysical Review Letters
Volume115
Issue number25
DOIs
StatePublished - 17 Dec 2015

Funding

FundersFunder number
National Science Foundation1505590

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