Eur. Phys. J. D 59, 257-267 (2010)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2010-00134-4

The non-Abelian bosonic quantum ring

¹ SUPA, Department of Physics, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, EH14 4AS, UK
² Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astronomy, Vilnius University, A. Gostauto 12, 01108 Vilnius, Lithuania

Corresponding author: ^a magm1@hw.ac.uk

Received: 17 December 2009
Revised: 12 February 2010
Published online: 12 May 2010

Abstract

We investigate the dynamics of a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate which is governed by an optically induced non-Abelian gauge potential. Using a ring shaped trap to confine the atoms and a hydrodynamic ansatz, nonlinear Josephson type equations are found to describe the system. The degenerate eigenstates which show rotation are solved exactly. We consider a homogenous filled ring and observe population dynamics between the two quasi-spin components but also space dependent Josephson oscillations. Stable mass currents can be observed which are induced by the constant non-Abelian effective magnetic field in the limit of weak interactions. For strong interactions the appearance of two-component dark soliton-like objects are observed.