Spin-orbit coupling is an important effect in many areas of physics, for instance, it plays an important role in determining atomic and nuclei structure and it gives birth to topological insulators. However, for long time spinorbit coupling was not discussed in the physics of ultracold atomic gases, because there is no spin-orbit coupling for the motion of neutral atoms. Recently, there are many proposals of generating various types of spin-orbit coupling in cold atom systems, and in particular, in 2011, Ian Speilman's group in NIST has realized one of these proposals experimentally in Rb-87 Bose condensate. These progresses generate a lot of interests and many good results have been published in the last couple years. Spin-orbit coupled quantum gases have now become one of the hottest research directions in cold atom physics. This review article reviews most recent theoretical and experimental progresses on this direction.
Some recent progresses on the study of ultracold quantum gases with spin-orbit coupling