Spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates held under toroidal trap

Abstract

We study a quasispin-$1/2$ Bose-Einstein condensate with synthetically generated spin-orbit coupling in a toroidal trap, and show that the system has a rich variety of ground and metastable states. As the central hole region increases, i.e., the potential changes from harmonic-like to ring-like, the condensate exhibits a variety of structures, such as triangular stripes, flower-petal patterns, and counter-circling states. We also show that the rotating systems have exotic vortex configurations. In the limit of a quasi-one dimensional ring, the quantum many-body ground state is obtained, which is found to be the fragmented condensate.