We consider a phase transition from an antiferromagnetic to a phase separated ground state in a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate of ultracold atoms. We demonstrate the occurrence of two scaling laws, for the number of spin domain seeds just after the phase transition, and for the number of spin domains in the final, stable configuration. Only the first scaling can be explained by the standard Kibble-Żurek mechanism. We explain the occurrence of two scaling laws by a model including postselection of spin domains due to the conservation of condensate magnetization.

We investigate the dynamics and outcome of a quantum phase transition from an antiferromagnetic to phase separated ground state in a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate of ultracold atoms. We explicitly demonstrate double universality in dynamics within experiments with various quench time. Furthermore, we show that spin domains created in the nonequilibrium transition constitute a set of mutually incoherent quasicondensates. The quasicondensates appear to be positioned in a semiregular fashion, which is a result of the conservation of local magnetization during the post-selection dynamics.

We theoretically study a spinor condensate of 87 Rb atoms in a F = 1 hyperfine state confined in an optical dipole trap. Putting initially all atoms in an m F = 1, component we observe a significant transfer of atoms to other, initially empty Zeeman states exclusively due to dipolar forces. Because of conservation of a total angular momentum the atoms going to other Zeeman components acquire an orbital angular momentum and circulate around the center of the trap. This is a realization of the Einstein-de Haas effect in a system of cold gases. We show that the transfer of atoms via dipolar interactions is possible only when the energies of the initial and the final sates are equal. This condition can be fulfilled utilizing a resonant external magnetic field, which tunes energies of involved states via the linear Zeeman effect. We found that there are many final states of different spatial density, which can be tuned selectively to the initial state. We show a simple model explaining high selectivity and controllability of weak dipolar interactions in the condensate of 87 Rb atoms.

We consider a spinor condensate of 87 Rb atoms in the F = 1 hyperfine state confined in an optical dipole trap. Putting initially all atoms in the m F = 0 component, we find that the system evolves toward a state of thermal equilibrium with kinetic energy equally distributed among all magnetic components. We show that this process is dominated by the dipolar interaction of magnetic spins rather than spin-mixing contact potential. Our results show that because of a dynamical separation of magnetic components, the spin-mixing dynamics in the 87 Rb condensate is governed by the dipolar interaction which plays no role in a single-component rubidium system in a magnetic trap. PACS number(s): 03.75. Mn, 05.30.Jp, 75.45.+j, 75.50.Mm † i (r)BF ijˆ j (r)

We numerically study the dynamics of a spinor chromium condensate in low magnetic fields. We show that the condensate evolution has a resonant character revealing rich structure of resonances similar to that already discussed in the case of alkali-atoms condensates. This indicates that dipolar resonances occur commonly in the systems of cold atoms. In fact, they have been already observed experimentally. We further simulate two recent experiments with chromium condensates, in which the threshold in spin relaxation and the spontaneous demagnetization phenomena were observed. We demonstrate that both these effects originate in resonant dynamics of chromium condensate.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figure

We develop a method for investigating nonequilibrium dynamics of an ultracold system that is initially at thermal equilibrium. Our procedure is based on the classical fields approximation with appropriately prepared initial state. As an application of the method, we investigate the influence of thermal fluctuations on the quantum phase transition from an antiferromagnetic to phase separated ground state in a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate of ultracold atoms. We find that at temperatures significantly lower than the critical condensation temperature Tc the scaling law for the number of created spin defects remains intact.

We study the influence of quantum fluctuations on the phase, density, and pair correlations in a trapped quasicondensate after a quench of the interaction strength. To do so, we derive a description similar to the stochastic Gross–Pitaevskii equation (SGPE) but keeping a fully quantum description of the low-energy fields using the positive-P representation. This allows us to treat both the quantum and thermal fluctuations together in an integrated way. A plain SGPE only allows for thermal fluctuations. The approach is applicable to such situations as finite temperature quantum quenches, but not equilibrium calculations due to the time limitations inherent in positive-P descriptions of interacting gases. One sees the appearance of antibunching, the generation of counter-propagating atom pairs, and increased phase fluctuations. We show that the behavior can be estimated by adding the T = 0 quantum fluctuation contribution to the thermal fluctuations described by the plain SGPE.

A method of controlled creation of spin domains in spin-1 antiferromagnetic Bose-Einstein condensates is demonstrated. The method exploits the phenomenon of phase separation of spin components in an external potential. By using an appropriate time-dependent potential, a composition of spin domains can be created, as demonstrated in the particular cases of a double well and a periodic potential. In contrast to other methods, which rely on spatially inhomogeneous magnetic fields, here the domain structure is completely determined by the optical fields, which makes the method versatile and reconfigurable. It allows for creation of domains of various sizes, with the spatial resolution limited by the spin healing length only.