Kavli Affiliate: Leon Balents
| First 5 Authors: Ethan C. McGarrigle, Kris T. Delaney, Leon Balents, Glenn H. Fredrickson,
| Summary:
We report the first observation of a “spin microemulsion”– a phase with
undulating spin domains resembling classical bicontinuous oil-water-surfactant
emulsions — in two-dimensional systems of spinor Bose-Einstein condensates
with isotropic Rashba spin-orbit coupling. Using field-theoretic numerical
simulations, we investigated the melting of a low-temperature stripe phase with
supersolid character and find that the stripes lose their superfluidity at
elevated temperature and undergo a Kosterlitz–Thouless-like transition into a
spin microemulsion. Momentum distribution calculations highlight a thermally
broadened occupation of the Rashba circle of low-energy states with macroscopic
and isotropic occupation around the ring. We provide a finite-temperature phase
diagram that positions the emulsion as an intermediate, structured isotropic
phase with residual quantum character before transitioning at higher
temperature into a structureless normal fluid.
| Search Query: ArXiv Query: search_query=au:”Leon Balents”&id_list=&start=0&max_results=3