Paper detail

Exotic domain walls in Bose-Einstein condensates with double-well dispersion

We study the domain walls which form when Bose condensates acquire a double-well dispersion. Experiments have observed such domain walls in condensates driven across a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry-breaking phase transition in a shaken optical lattice. We derive a generic model to describe the dispersion and to compute the wavefunctions and energies of the domain walls. We find two distinct regimes which demand different physical pictures. In the weak coupling regime, where interactions are weak compared to the kinetic energy barrier, "density wave domain walls" form that support an extended density wave and a series of phase steps. These features can be understood as the quantum interference between domains with distinct momenta. In the strong coupling regime where interaction dominates, the system forms "phase domain walls" which have the minimum width allowed by the uncertainty principle and suppressed density modulation. Analytic results for the domain wall wavefunctions are obtained in the two regimes. The energy of domain walls behaves similarly to that of topological defects in paradigmatic field theories.