Stable three-dimensional lattice solitons in spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates

Abstract

We address three-dimensional (3D) solitons maintained by spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in the binary self-interacting Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) held in the 3D optical lattice (OL). The analysis reveals that the SOC-OL interplay results in the formation of stable full-vortex (FV) soli-tons, built as sets of four density peaks residing in neighboring wells of the lattice potential, with the superimposed global vortical phase, and site-centered semi-vortices (SV), in which the vorticity is present in only one component. The full-vortex solitons, with their specific phase textures, do not exist in a uniform BEC with SOC. Full-vortex and semi-vortex states in the binary self-attractive BEC are stable despite the possibility of the supercritical collapse in the 3D system. Such states also exist, as gap solitons, in the self-repulsive 3D system. In terms of the chemical potential and number of particles, the stability regions of the 3D full-vortex solitons and semi-vortices expand with the increase of the SOC strength and OL depth. The results open the route to the creation of 3D complexes of vorticity-carrying condensates that can be realized with existing experimental techniques.