Spin-orbit-coupled spinor gap solitons in Bose-Einstein condensates

Abstract

Spin-1 spin-orbit-coupled spinor Bose-Einstein condensates have been realized in experiment. We study spin-orbit-coupled spinor gap solitons in this experimentally realizable system with an optical lattice. The spin-dependent parity symmetry of the spin-orbit coupling plays an important role in properties of gap solitons. Two families of solitons with opposite spin-dependent parity are found. Using an approximating model by replacing the optical lattice with a Harmonic trap, we demonstrate the physical origination of these two families. For a large negative quadratic Zeeman shift, we also find a type of gap solitons that spontaneously breaks the spin-dependent parity symmetry due to the ferromagnetic spinor interactions.