• Accepted Paper

Kelvin-Helmholtz and counter-superflow instabilities driven by differential effective rotation in a three-component Bose-Einstein condensate

Susovan Giri, Arpana Saboo, Hari Sadhan Ghosh, Vipin, and Sonjoy Majumder

Phys. Rev. A - Accepted 29 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/1kgv-h6pw

Abstract

Interfacial hydrodynamic instabilities in multicomponent superfluids provide a versatile platform to explore nonequilibrium quantum dynamics beyond classical fluid analogues. We study dynamical interfacial instabilities in a quasi-two-dimensional three-component Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a harmonic trap, where differential effective rotation between neighboring components is generated through selective phase imprinting. A component with an imprinted vorticity lj acquires an azimuthal phase winding ϕj=ljθ, producing a superfluid velocity vθ(rj)=ljℏ/mrj at interface radius rj and an effective angular velocity Ωjeff=ljℏ/mrj2. The differential effective rotation ΔΩjeff=Ωjeff−Ωj+1eff between neighboring components constitutes the sole driver of interfacial shear and the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. Three instability regimes are examined: KHI in the strongly immiscible limit, counter-superflow instability in the partially miscible regime, and a parameter window where both mechanisms coexist. A hydrodynamic pressure-balance model is derived, showing that the KHI onset condition depends only on ΔΩjeff. Time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii simulations and a Bogoliubov-de Gennes analysis identify the dominant unstable modes, whose spatial structures are consistent with the observed density modulations. The dominant azimuthal mode is set by a competition between shear-driven destabilization and surface-tension stabilization, confirmed by numerical simulations with different imprinted vorticities. The results show that a three-component condensate with two tunable interfaces provides a controlled platform for studying multicomponent quantum hydrodynamics, with instability dynamics significantly richer than those of binary mixtures.

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