Spin effects in the particle current of Bose-Einstein condensates in synthetic gauge fields

Abstract

Although spin is not a relativistic quantity, its effects are not always manifestly captured within non-relativistic theoretical frameworks. We report on one of these effects: the spin term in the particle current density, which could be observed in the setup of a synthetic Hall system made with non-relativistic Bose-Einstein condensates of pseudospin-1/2 bosonic particles. By tuning the interaction strength, the system can show how the spin term in the particle current is needed for the local matching of classical drift velocity in the ground state of the non-interacting system, whereas for increasing interactions the spin-to-orbital current ratio decreases. In either case, since the overall particle velocity changes with the spin term contribution, so does its circulation in a loop, which in turn has physical consequences for its relationship with the Aharonov-Bohm phase shift.