Contributor info: Prof. Massimo Capone

Matteo Caldara, Andrea Richaud, Massimo Capone, Pietro Massignan

SciPost Phys. 17, 076 (2024) · published 10 September 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We characterize the dynamical instability responsible for the breakdown of regular rows and necklaces of quantized vortices that appear at the interface between two superfluids in relative motion. Making use of a generalized point-vortex model, we identify several mechanisms leading to the suppression of this instability. They include a non-zero mass of the vortex cores, dissipative processes resulting from the interaction between the vortices and the excitations of the superfluid, and the proximity of the vortex array to the sample boundaries. We show that massive vortex cores not only have a mitigating effect on the dynamical instability, but also change the associated scaling law and affect the direction along which it develops. The predictions of our massive and dissipative point-vortex model are eventually compared against recent experimental measurements of the maximum instability growth rate relevant to vortex necklaces in a cold-atom platform.

Matteo Caldara, Andrea Richaud, Massimo Capone, Pietro Massignan

SciPost Phys. 15, 057 (2023) · published 9 August 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We study a superfluid in a planar annulus hosting vortices with massive cores. An analytical point-vortex model shows that the massive vortices may perform radial oscillations on top of the usual uniform precession of their massless counterpart. Beyond a critical vortex mass, this oscillatory motion becomes unstable and the vortices are driven towards one of the edges. The analogy with the motion of a charged particle in a static electromagnetic field leads to the development of a plasma orbit theory that provides a description of the trajectories which remains accurate even beyond the regime of small radial oscillations. These results are confirmed by the numerical solution of coupled two-component Gross-Pitaevskii equations. The analysis is then extended to a necklace of vortices symmetrically arranged within the annulus.

Matteo Ferraretto, Andrea Richaud, Lorenzo Del Re, Leonardo Fallani, Massimo Capone

SciPost Phys. 14, 048 (2023) · published 24 March 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We consider the effect of a local interatomic repulsion on synthetic heterostructures where a discrete synthetic dimension is created by Raman processes on top of $SU(N)$-symmetric two-dimensional lattice systems. At a filling of one fermion per site, increasing the interaction strength, the system is driven towards a Mott state which is adiabatically connected to a band insulator. The chiral currents associated with the synthetic magnetic field increase all the way to the Mott transition, where they reach the maximum value, and they remain finite in the whole insulating state. The transition towards the Mott-band insulator is associated with the opening of a gap within the low-energy quasiparticle peak, while a mean-field picture is recovered deep in the insulating state.