Quantum phases and the spectrum of collective modes in a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate with spin-orbital-angular-momentum coupling

Abstract

ABSTRACT Motivated by recent experiments [Chen et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 113204 (2018); Chen et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 250401 (2018)], we investigate the low-lying excitation spectrum of the ground-state phases of spin-orbital-angular-momentum-coupled (SOAM-coupled) spin-1 condensates. At vanishing detuning, a ferromagnetic SOAM-coupled spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) can have two ground-state phases, namely, coreless and polar-core vortex states, whereas an antiferromagnetic BEC supports only polar-core vortex solution. The angular momentum per particle, longitudinal magnetization, and excitation frequencies display discontinuities across the phase boundary between the coreless vortex and polar-core vortex phases. The low-lying excitation spectrum evaluated by solving the Bogoliubov–de Gennes equations is marked by avoided crossings and hence the hybridization of the spin and density channels. The spectrum is further confirmed by the dynamical evolution of the ground state subjected to a perturbation suitable to excite a density or a spin mode and a variational analysis for the density-breathing mode.