No Arabic abstract
A recent analysis has revealed singular but physically relevant 2D localized vortex states with density ~ 1/r^{4/3} at r --> 0 and a convergent total norm, which are maintained by the interplay of the potential of the attraction to the center, ~ -1/r^2, and a self-repulsive quartic nonlinearity, produced by the Lee-Huang-Yang correction to the mean-field dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates. In optics, a similar setting, with the density singularity ~ 1/r, is realized with the help of quintic self-defocusing. Here we present physically relevant antidark singular-vortex states in these systems, existing on top of a flat background. Numerical solutions for them are very accurately approximated by the Thomas-Fermi wave function. Their stability exactly obeys an analytical criterion derived for small perturbations. It is demonstrated that the singular vortices can be excited by the input in the form of ordinary nonsingular vortices, hence the singular modes can be created in the experiment. We also consider regular (dark) vortices maintained by the flat background, under the action of the repulsive central potential ~ +1/r^2. The dark modes with vorticities l = 0 and l = 1 are completely stable. In the case when the central potential is attractive, but the effective one, which includes the centrifugal term, is repulsive, and a weak trapping potential ~ r^2 is added, dark vortices with l = 1 feature an intricate pattern of alternating stability and instability regions. Under the action of the instability, states with l = 1 travel along tangled trajectories, which stay in a finite area defined by the trap. The analysis is also reported for dark vortices with l = 2, which feature a complex structure of alternating intervals of stability and instability against splitting. Lastly, simple but novel flat vortices are found at the border between the anidark and dark ones.
This article provides a focused review of recent findings which demonstrate, in some cases quite counter-intuitively, the existence of bound states with a singularity of the density pattern at the center, while the states are physically meaningful because their total norm converges. One model of this type is based on the 2D Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE) which combines the attractive potential ~ 1/r^2 and the quartic self-repulsive nonlinearity, induced by the Lee-Huang-Yang effect (quantum fluctuations around the mean-field state). The GPE demonstrates suppression of the 2D quantum collapse, driven by the attractive potential, and emergence of a stable ground state (GS), whose density features an integrable singularity ~1/r^{4/3} at r --> 0. Modes with embedded angular momentum exist too, and they have their stability regions. A counter-intuitive peculiarity of the model is that the GS exists even if the sign of the potential is reversed from attraction to repulsion, provided that its strength is small enough. This peculiarity finds a relevant explanation. The other model outlined in the review includes 1D, 2D, and 3D GPEs, with the septimal (seventh-order), quintic, and cubic self-repulsive terms, respectively. These equations give rise to stable singular solitons, which represent the GS for each dimension D, with the density singularity ~1/r^{2/(4-D). Such states may be considered as a result of screening of a bare delta-functional attractive potential by the respective nonlinearity.
We study stability of solitary vortices in the two-dimensional trapped Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) with a spatially localized region of self-attraction. Solving the respective Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations and running direct simulations of the underlying Gross-Pitaevskii equation reveals that vortices with topological charge up to S = 6 (at least) are stable above a critical value of the chemical potential (i.e., below a critical number of atoms, which sharply increases with S). The largest nonlinearity-localization radius admitting the stabilization of the higher-order vortices is estimated analytically and accurately identified in a numerical form. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example of a setting which gives rise to stable higher-order vortices, S > 1, in a trapped self-attractive BEC. The same setting may be realized in nonlinear optics too.
Quantum vortices, the quantized version of classical vortices, play a prominent role in superfluid and superconductor phase transitions. However, their exploration at a particle level in open quantum systems has gained considerable attention only recently. Here we study vortex pair interactions in a resonant polariton fluid created in a solid-state microcavity. By tracking the vortices on picosecond time scales, we reveal the role of nonlinearity, as well as of density and phase gradients, in driving their rotational dynamics. Such effects are also responsible for the split of composite spin-vortex molecules into elementary half-vortices, when seeding opposite vorticity between the two spinorial components. Remarkably, we also observe that vortices placed in close proximity experience a pull-push scenario leading to unusual scattering-like events that can be described by a tunable effective potential. Understanding vortex interactions can be useful in quantum hydrodynamics and in the development of vortex-based lattices, gyroscopes, and logic devices.
Reflection of wave packets from downward potential steps and attractive potentials, known as a quantum reflection, has been explored for bright matter-wave solitons with the main emphasis on the possibility to trap them on top of a pedestal-shaped potential. In numerical simulations, we observed that moving solitons return from the borders of the potential and remain trapped for a sufficiently long time. The shuttle motion of the soliton is accompanied by shedding some amount of matter at each reflection from the borders of the trap, thus reducing its norm. The one- and two- soliton configurations are considered. A discontinuous jump of trajectories of colliding solitons has been discussed. The time-shift observed in a step-like decay of the moving solitons norm in the two-soliton configuration is linked to the trajectory jump phenomenon. The obtained results can be of interest for the design of new soliton experiments with Bose-Einstein condensates.
We study the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of a two-dimensional paraxial fluid of light using a near-resonant laser propagating through a hot atomic vapor. We observe a double shock-collapse instability: a shock (gradient catastrophe) for the velocity, as well as an annular (ring-shaped) collapse singularity for the density. We find experimental evidence that this instability results from the combined effect of the nonlocal photon-photon interaction and the linear photon losses. The theoretical analysis based on the method of characteristics reveals the main counterintuitive result that dissipation (photon losses) is responsible for an unexpected enhancement of the collapse instability. Detailed analytical modeling makes it possible to evaluate the nonlocality range of the interaction. The nonlocality is controlled by adjusting the atomic vapor temperature and is seen to increase dramatically when the atomic density becomes much larger than one atom per cubic wavelength. Interestingly, such a large range of the nonlocal photon-photon interaction has not been observed in an atomic vapor so far and its microscopic origin is currently unknown.