Eur. Phys. J. D (2013) 67: 148
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2013-40053-2

Regular Article

A study of coherently coupled two-component Bose-Einstein condensates

INO-CNR BEC Center and Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Trento, 38123 Povo, Italy

^a e-mail: recati@science.unitn.it

Received: 28 January 2013
Published online: 24 July 2013

Abstract

We present a self-consistent study of coherently coupled two-component Bose-Einstein condensates. Finite spin-flipping coupling changes the first order demixing phase transition for Bose-Bose mixtures to a second order phase transition between an unpolarized and a polarized state. We analise the excitation spectrum and the structure factor along the transition for a homogeneous system. We discuss the main differences at the transition between a coherent coupled gas and a two-component mixture. We finally study the ground state when spin-(in)dependent trapping potentials are added to the system, focusing on optical lattices, which give rise to interesting new configurations.