Symmetry breaking Rayleigh-Taylor instability in a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate

Abstract

The interfacial instability and subsequent dynamics in a phase-separated two-component Bose-Einstein condensate with rotation symmetry are studied. When the interatomic interaction or the trap frequency is changed, the Rayleigh-Taylor instability breaks the rotation symmetry of the interface, which is subsequently deformed into nonlinear patterns including mushroom shapes.