Decay of an isolated monopole into a Dirac monopole configuration
Phys. Rev. A 93, 033638 – Published 21 March, 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.93.033638
Abstract
We study numerically the detailed structure and decay dynamics of isolated monopoles in conditions similar to those of their recent experimental discovery. We find that the core of a monopole in the polar phase of a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate contains a small half-quantum vortex ring. Well after the creation of the monopole, we observe a dynamical quantum phase transition that destroys the polar phase. Strikingly, the resulting ferromagnetic order parameter exhibits a Dirac monopole in its synthetic magnetic field. We observe quantitatively matching decay dynamics for both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic spin-spin interactions.