Non-Hamiltonian Kelvin wave generation on vortices in Bose-Einstein condensates

Ultra-cold quantum turbulence is expected to decay through a cascade of Kelvin waves. These helical excitations couple vorticity to the quantum fluid causing long wavelength phonon fluctuations in a Bose-Einstein condensate. This interaction is hypothesized to be the route to relaxation for turbulent tangles in quantum hydrodynamics. The local induction approximation is the lowest order approximation to the Biot-Savart velocity field induced by a vortex line and, because of its integrability, is thought to prohibit energy transfer by Kelvin waves. Using the Biot-Savart description, we derive a generalization to the local induction approximation which predicts that regions of large curvature can reconfigure themselves as Kelvin wave packets. While this generalization preserves the arclength metric, a quantity conserved under the Eulerian flow of vortex lines, it also introduces a non-Hamiltonian structure on the geometric properties of the vortex line. It is this non-Hamiltonian evolution of curvature and torsion which provides a resolution to the missing Kelvin wave motion. In this work, we derive corrections to the local induction approximation in powers of curvature and state them for utilization in vortex filament methods. Using the Hasimoto transformation, we arrive at a nonlinear integro-differential equation which reduces to a modified nonlinear Schr\"odinger type evolution of the curvature and torsion on the vortex line. We show that this modification seeks to disperse localized curvature profiles. At the same time, the non-Hamiltonian break in integrability bolsters the deforming curvature profile and simulations show that this dynamic results in Kelvin wave propagation along the dispersive vortex medium.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figure

Scattering of a dark-bright soliton by an impurity

We study the dynamics of a dark-bright soliton interacting with a fixed impurity using a mean-field approach. The system is described by a vector nonlinear Schrodinger equation (NLSE) appropriate to multicomponent Bose-Einstein condensates. We use the variational approximation, based on hyperbolic functions, where we have the center of mass of the two components to describe the propagation of the dark and bright components independently. Therefore, it allows the dark-bright soliton to oscillate. The fixed local impurity is modeled by a delta function. Also, we use perturbation methods to derive the equations of motion for the center of mass of the two components. The interaction of the dark-bright soliton with a delta function potential excites different modes in the system. The analytical model capture two of these modes: the relative oscillation between the two components and the oscillation in the widths. The numerical simulations show additional internal modes play an important role in the interaction problem. The excitation of internal modes corresponds to inelastic scattering. In addition, we calculate the maximum velocity for a dark-bright soliton and find it is limited to a value below the sound speed, depending on the relative number of atoms present in the bright soliton component and excavated by the dark soliton component, respectively. Above a critical value of the maximum velocity, the two components are no longer described by one center of mass variable and develop internal oscillations, eventually breaking apart when pushed to higher velocities. This effect limits the incident kinetic energy in scattering studies and presents a smoking gun experimental signal.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure

Internal Oscillations of a Dark-Bright Soliton in a Harmonic Potential

We investigate the dynamics of a dark-bright soliton in a harmonic potential using a mean-field approach via coupled nonlinear Schr\"odinger equations appropriate to multicomponent Bose-Einstein condensates. We use a modified perturbed dynamical variational Lagrangian approximation, where the perturbation is due to the trap, taken as a Thomas-Fermi profile. The wavefunction ansatz is taken as the correct hyperbolic tangent and secant solutions in the scalar case for the dark and bright components of the soliton, respectively. We also solve the problem numerically with psuedo-spectral Runge-Kutta methods. We find, analytically and numerically, for weak trapping the internal modes are nearly independent of center of mass motion of the dark-bright soliton. In contrast, in tighter traps the internal modes couple strongly to the center of mass motion, showing that for dark-bright solitons in a harmonic potential the center of mass and relative degrees of freedom are not independent. This result is robust against noise in the initial condition and should, therefore, be experimentally observable.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figure

Finite Temperature Matrix Product State Algorithms and Applications

We review the basic theory of matrix product states (MPS) as a numerical variational ansatz for time evolution, and present two methods to simulate finite temperature systems with MPS: the ancilla method and the minimally entangled typical thermal state method. A sample calculation with the Bose-Hubbard model is provided.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

The nonlinear Dirac equation in Bose-Einstein condensates: Vortex solutions and spectra in a weak harmonic trap

We analyze the vortex solution space of the $(2 +1)$-dimensional nonlinear Dirac equation for bosons in a honeycomb optical lattice at length scales much larger than the lattice spacing. Dirac point relativistic covariance combined with s-wave scattering for bosons leads to a large number of vortex solutions characterized by different functional forms for the internal spin and overall phase of the order parameter. We present a detailed derivation of these solutions which include skyrmions, half-quantum vortices, Mermin-Ho and Anderson-Toulouse vortices for vortex winding $\ell = 1$. For $\ell \ge 2$ we obtain topological as well as non-topological solutions defined by the asymptotic radial dependence. For arbitrary values of $\ell$ the non-topological solutions are bright ring-vortices which explicitly demonstrate the confining effects of the Dirac operator. We arrive at solutions through an asymptotic Bessel series, algebraic closed-forms, and using standard numerical shooting methods. By including a harmonic potential to simulate a finite trap we compute the discrete spectra associated with radially quantized modes. We demonstrate the continuous spectral mapping between the vortex and free particle limits for all of our solutions.Comment: 37 pages, 15 figure

Spatial Dependence of Entropy in Trapped Ultracold Bose Gases

We find a new physical regime in the trapped Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian using time-evolving block decimation. Between Mott-insulating and superfluid phases, the latter induced by trap compression, a spatially self-organized state appears in which non-local entropy signals entanglement between spatially distant superfluid shells. We suggest a linear rather than harmonic potential as an ideal way to observe such a self-organized system. We also explore both quantum information and thermal entropies in the superfluid regime, finding that while the former follows the density closely the latter can be strongly manipulated with the mean field.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

The nonlinear Dirac equation in Bose-Einstein condensates: Superfluid fluctuations and emergent theories from relativistic linear stability equations

We present the theoretical and mathematical foundations of stability analysis for a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) at Dirac points of a honeycomb optical lattice. The combination of s-wave scattering for bosons and lattice interaction places constraints on the mean-field description, and hence on vortex configurations in the Bloch-envelope function near the Dirac point. A full derivation of the relativistic linear stability equations (RLSE) is presented by two independent methods to ensure veracity of our results. Solutions of the RLSE are used to compute fluctuations and lifetimes of vortex solutions of the nonlinear Dirac equation, which include Mermin-Ho and Anderson-Toulouse skyrmions, with lifetime $\approx 4$ seconds. Beyond vortex stabilities the RLSE provide insight into the character of collective superfluid excitations, which we find to encode several established theories of physics. In particular, the RLSE reduce to the Andreev equations, in the nonrelativistic and semiclassical limits, the Majorana equation, inside vortex cores, and the Dirac-Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations, when nearest-neighbor interactions are included. Furthermore, by tuning a mass gap, relative strengths of various spinor couplings, for the small and large quasiparticle momentum regimes, we obtain weak-strong Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer superconductivity, as well as fundamental wave equations such as Schr\"odinger, Dirac, Klein-Gordon, and Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations. Our results apply equally to a strongly spin-orbit coupled BEC in which the Laplacian contribution can be neglected.Comment: 43 pages, 10 figure

Dynamics of Vector Solitons in Bose-Einstein Condensates

We analyze the dynamics of two-component vector solitons, namely bright-in-dark solitons, via the variational approximation in Bose-Einstein condensates. The system is described by a vector nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation appropriate to multi-component Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs). The variational approximation is based on hyperbolic secant (hyperbolic tangent) for the bright (dark) component, which leads to a system of coupled ordinary differential equations for the evolution of the ansatz parameters. We obtain the oscillation dynamics of two-component dark-bright vector solitons. Analytical calculations are performed for same-width components in the vector soliton and numerical calculations extend the results to arbitrary widths. We calculate the binding energy of the system and find it proportional to the intercomponent coupling interaction, and numerically demonstrate the break up or unbinding of a dark-bright soliton. Our calculations explore observable eigenmodes, namely the internal oscillation eigenmode and the Goldstone eigenmode. We find analytically that the density of the bright component is required to be less than the density of the dark component in order to find the internal oscillation eigenmode of the vector soliton and support the existence of the dark-bright soliton. This outcome is confirmed by numerical results. Numerically, we find that the oscillation frequency is amplitude independent. For dark-bright vector solitons in $^{87}$Rb we find that the oscillation frequency range is 90 to 405 Hz, and therefore observable in multi-component BEC experiments.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, 1 table, 1 appendi

Non-Hamiltonian Dynamics of Quantized Vortices in Bose-Einstein Condensates

The dynamics of quantized vortices in weakly interacting superfluids are often modeled by a nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation. In contrast, we show that quantized vortices in fact obey a non-Hamiltonian evolution equation, which enhances dispersion along the vortex line while introducing a gain mechanism. This allows the vortex medium to support a helical shock front propagating ahead of a dissipative soliton. This dynamic relaxes localized curvature events into Kelvin wave packets. Consequently, a beyond local induction model provides a pathway for decay in low-temperature quantum turbulence.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

The nonlinear Dirac equation in Bose-Einstein condensates: II. Relativistic soliton stability analysis

The nonlinear Dirac equation for Bose-Einstein condensates in honeycomb optical lattices gives rise to relativistic multi-component bright and dark soliton solutions. Using the relativistic linear stability equations, the relativistic generalization of the Boguliubov-de Gennes equations, we compute soliton lifetimes against quantum fluctuations and classify the different excitation types. For a Bose-Einstein condensate of $^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$ atoms, we find that our soliton solutions are stable on time scales relevant to experiments. Excitations in the bulk region far from the core of a soliton and bound states in the core are classified as either spin waves or as a Nambu-Goldstone mode. Thus, solitons are topologically distinct pseudospin-$1/2$ domain walls between polarized regions of $S_z = \pm 1/2$. Numerical analysis in the presence of a harmonic trap potential reveals a discrete spectrum reflecting the number of bright soliton peaks or dark soliton notches in the condensate background. For each quantized mode the chemical potential versus nonlinearity exhibits two distinct power law regimes corresponding to the free-particle (weakly nonlinear) and soliton (strongly nonlinear) limits.Comment: 31 pages, 12 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1305.653