No Arabic abstract
The main theme of this review is the many-body physics of vortices in quantum droplets of bosons or fermions, in the limit of small particle numbers. Systems of interest include cold atoms in traps as well as electrons confined in quantum dots. When set to rotate, these in principle very different quantum systems show remarkable analogies. The topics reviewed include the structure of the finite rotating many-body state, universality of vortex formation and localization of vortices in both bosonic and fermionic systems, and the emergence of particle-vortex composites in the quantum Hall regime. An overview of the computational many-body techniques sets focus on the configuration interaction and density-functional methods. Studies of quantum droplets with one or several particle components, where vortices as well as coreless vortices may occur, are reviewed, and theoretical as well as experimental challenges are discussed.
We predict that Lee-Huang-Yang effect makes it possible to create stable quantum droplets (QDs) in binary Bose-Einstein condensates with a hetero-symmetric or hetero-multipole structure, i.e., different vorticities or multipolarities in their components. The QDs feature flat-top shapes when either chemical potential mu_1,2 of the droplet approaches an edge of a triangular existence domain in the (mu_1,mu_2) plane. QDs with different vorticities of their components are stable against azimuthal perturbations, provided that the norm of one component is large. We also present multipole states, in which the interaction with a strong fundamental component balances the repulsion between poles with opposite signs in the other component, leading to the formation of stable bound states. Extended stability domains are obtained for dipole QDs; tripole ones exist but are unstable, while quadrupoles are stable in a narrow region. The results uncover the existence of much richer families of stable binary QDs in comparison to states with identical components.
We predict the formation of giant vortices in quasi-two-dimensional quantum dots at high magnetic fields, i.e., in rapidly rotating electron droplets. Our numerical results of quantum dots confined by a flat, anharmonic potential show ground states where vortices are accumulated in the center of the dot, thereby leading to large cores in the electron and current densities. The phenomenon is analogous to what was recently found in rotating Bose-Einstein condensates. The giant-vortex states leave measurable signatures in the ground-state energetics. The conditions for the giant-vortex formation as well as the internal structure of the vortex cores are discussed.
Two-dimensional semiconductor quantum dots are studied in the the filling-factor range 2<v<3. We find both theoretical and experimental evidence of a collective many-body phenomenon, where a fraction of the trapped electrons form an incompressible spin-droplet on the highest occupied Landau level. The phenomenon occurs only when the number of electrons in the quantum dot is larger than ~30. We find the onset of the spin-droplet regime at v=5/2. This proposes a finite-geometry alternative to the Moore-Read-type Pfaffian state of the bulk two-dimensional electron gas. Hence, the spin-droplet formation may be related to the observed fragility of the v=5/2 quantum Hall state in narrow quantum point contacts.
When vortices are displaced in Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC), the Magnus force gives the system a momentum transverse in the direction to the displacement. We show that Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) in long channels with vortices exhibit a quantization of the current response with respect to the spatial vortex distribution. The quantization originates from the well-known topological property of the phase around a vortex --- it is an integer multiple of $ 2 pi $. In a similar way to the integer quantum Hall effect, the current along the channel is related to this topological phase, and can be extracted from two experimentally measurable quantities: the total momentum of the BEC and the spatial distribution. The quantization is in units of $ m/2h $, where $ m $ is the mass of the atoms and $ h $ is Plancks constant. We derive an exact vortex momentum-displacement relation for BECs in long channels under general circumstances. Our results presents the possibility that the configuration described here can be used as a novel way of measuring the mass of the atoms in the BEC using a topological invariant of the system. If an accurate determination of the plateaus are experimentally possible, this gives the possibility of a topological quantum mass standard and precise determination of the fine structure constant.
We consider a binary bosonic condensate with weak mean-field (MF) residual repulsion, loaded in an array of nearly one-dimensional traps coupled by transverse hopping. With the MF force balanced by the effectively one-dimensional attraction, induced in each trap by the Lee-Hung-Yang correction (produced by quantum fluctuations around the MF state), stable onsite-centered and intersite-centered semi-discrete quantum droplets (QDs) emerge in the array, as fundamental ones and self-trapped vortices, with winding numbers, at least, up to 5, in both tightly-bound and quasi-continuum forms. The application of a relatively strong trapping potential leads to squeezing transitions, which increase the number of sites in fundamental QDs, and eventually replace vortex modes by fundamental or dipole ones. The results provide the first realization of stable semi-discrete vortex QDs, including ones with multiple vorticity.