Quantum phases and dynamics of dipolar spin-1 ferromagnetic Bose–Einstein condensates with spin–orbit coupling in a double-well potential

We consider a spin-1 ferromagnetic Bose–Einstein condensate with Rashba spin–orbit coupling (SOC) and dipole–dipole interaction (DDI) in a double-well potential. For the nonrotating case, the ground state of the system is obtained by using the imaginary time propagation method, and a ground-state phase diagram is given with respect to the SOC strength and the DDI strength. It is shown that the nonrotating system sustains rich exotic ground-state phases including the ox-horn phase with hidden vortices and antivortices, density droplet phase with vortex–antivortex pairs, modulated stripe phase with vortex–antivortex chains, checkerboard phase with visible vortex–antivortex chains and hidden vortex–antivortex pairs, and the triangular vortex–antivortex lattice phase. For the rotating case, the dynamics of the system is investigated by using a phenomenological dissipation model. The effects of SOC, DDI and rotation on the unique dynamic behaviors of the rotating system and the final steady-state structures are revealed and analyzed. In particular, the rotating system supports fascinating novel spin textures and skyrmion excitations, and experiences a series of topological structure transitions such as the transitions from an interlaced skyrmion–antiskyrmion lattice pair to a skyrmion–meron lattice pair and then to a meron lattice pair.