Control of light-atom solitons and atomic transport by optical vortex beams propagating through a Bose-Einstein condensate

Henderson, Grant W. and Robb, Gordon R. M. and Oppo, Gian-Luca and Yao, Alison M. (2022) Control of light-atom solitons and atomic transport by optical vortex beams propagating through a Bose-Einstein condensate. Physical Review Letters, 129 (7). 073902. ISSN 1079-7114 (https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.073902)

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Abstract

We model propagation of far-red-detuned optical vortex beams through a Bose-Einstein condensate using nonlinear Schrödinger and Gross-Pitaevskii equations. We show the formation of coupled light-atomic solitons that rotate azimuthally before moving off tangentially, carrying angular momentum. The number, and velocity, of solitons, depends on the orbital angular momentum of the optical field. Using a Bessel-Gauss beam increases radial confinement so that solitons can rotate with fixed azimuthal velocity. Our model provides a highly controllable method of channeling a BEC and atomic transport.