Spinor Condensates on a Cylindrical Surface in Synthetic Gauge Fields

Abstract

We point out that by modifying the setup of a recent experiment that generates a Dirac string, one can create a quasi 2D spinor Bose condensate on a cylindrical surface with a synthetic magnetic field pointing radially outward from the cylindrical surface. The synthetic magnetic field takes the form of the Landau gauge. It is generated by the Berry's phase of a spin texture, frozen by an external quadrupolar magnetic field. Unlike in the planar case, there are two types of vortices (called A and B) with the same vorticity. The ground state for $5\le S\le 9$ consists of a row of alternating AB vortices lying at the equatorial circle of the cylinder. For higher values of $S$, the A and B vortices split into two rows and are displaced from each other along the cylindrical axis $z$. The fact that many properties of a BEC are altered in a cylindrical surface implies many rich phenomena will emerge for ground states in curved surfaces.