Spatiotemporal vortex rings in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates

Abstract

We investigate spatiotemporal vortex rings with phase dislocation both in space and time. It is demonstrated that these structures naturally appear as a periodical in time edge phase dislocation at the low-density region of a perturbed atomic Bose-Einstein condensate. The condition of formation, dynamics and stability of the spatiotemporal vortex rings are investigated for repulsive and attractive interatomic interactions. These theoretical findings open up a perspective for experimental observation of novel type of topological coherent structures in ultracold gases.