Vortex stability in Bose-Einstein condensates in the presence of disorder

Marisa Pons and Anna Sanpera
Phys. Rev. A 95, 033626 – Published 24 March 2017

Abstract

We study the time evolution of a Bose-Einstein condensate with a vortex on it when it is released from a trap and expands freely in a spatially uncorrelated disordered media. As customary in such cases, we perform the evolution over different disorder realizations and average over the disorder to obtain the quantities of interest. The propagation of noninteracting quantum systems in disordered media is strongly linked to Anderson localization which can be understood as formation of islands of constant phase due to coherent backscattering. We find that the vortex superfluid localizes in such media and, moreover, the vortex is resilient to disorder effects. This is a single-particle effect. In the presence of interactions, no matter how small they are, the vortex rapidly decays into phase discontinuities although localization is still present. The study of dispersion of a bosonic condensate with vorticity in a disordered media bears similarities with the stability of topological excitations in two-dimensional p-wave fermionic superfluids where the ground state is a Majorana mode that arises in the form of a vortex in the order parameter.

  • Figure
  • Figure
  • Received 20 October 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.95.033626

©2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Atomic, Molecular & Optical

Authors & Affiliations

Marisa Pons1 and Anna Sanpera2,3

  • 1Departmento de Física Aplicada I, Universidad del País Vasco, UPV-EHU, Bilbao, Spain
  • 2ICREA, Pg. Lluís Companys 23, 08010 Barcelona, Spain
  • 3Departament de Física, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, E-08193 Bellaterra, Spain

Article Text (Subscription Required)

Click to Expand

References (Subscription Required)

Click to Expand
Issue

Vol. 95, Iss. 3 — March 2017

Reuse & Permissions
Access Options
Author publication services for translation and copyediting assistance advertisement

Authorization Required


×
×

Images

×

Sign up to receive regular email alerts from Physical Review A

Log In

Cancel
×

Search


Article Lookup

Paste a citation or DOI

Enter a citation
×