Spontaneous breaking of spatial and spin symmetry in spinor condensates
Abstract
Parametric amplification of quantum fluctuations constitutes a fundamental mechanism for spontaneous symmetry breaking. In our experiments, a spinor condensate acts as a parametric amplifier of spin modes, resulting in a twofold spontaneous breaking of spatial and spin symmetry in the amplified clouds. Our experiments permit a precise analysis of the amplification in specific spatial Bessel-like modes, allowing for the detailed understanding of the double symmetry breaking. On resonances that create vortex-antivortex superpositions, we show that the cylindrical spatial symmetry is spontaneously broken, but phase squeezing prevents spin-symmetry breaking. If, however, nondegenerate spin modes contribute to the amplification, quantum interferences lead to spin-dependent density profiles and hence spontaneously-formed patterns in the longitudinal magnetization.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1007.2342,
title = {Spontaneous breaking of spatial and spin symmetry in spinor condensates},
author = {M. Scherer and B. Lücke and G. Gebreyesus and O. Topic and F. Deuretzbacher and W. Ertmer and L. Santos and J. J. Arlt and C. Klempt},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1007.2342},
year = {2010}
}
Comments
5 pages, 4 figures