Abstract
We investigate the vortex structures excited by Ioffe-Pritchard magnetic field and Dresselhaus-type spin-orbit coupling in F = 2 ferromagnetic Bose-Einstein condensates. In the weakly interatomic interacting regime, an external magnetic field can generate a polar-core vortex in which the canonical particle current is zero. With the combined effect of spin-orbit coupling and magnetic field, the ground state experiences a transition from polar-core vortex to Mermin-Ho vortex, in which the canonical particle current is anticlockwise. For fixed spin-orbit coupling strengths, the evolution of phase winding, magnetization and degree of phase separation with magnetic field are studied. Additionally, with further increasing spin-orbit coupling strength, the condensate exhibits symmetrical density domains separated by radial vortex arrays. Our work paves the way to explore exotic topological excitations in high-spin system.
Ground state of spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates with spin-orbit coupling in a Zeeman field
