UNCONVENTIONAL BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATIONS BEYOND THE NO-NODE THEOREM

Feynman's no-node theorem states that the conventional many-body ground state wavefunctions of bosons in the coordinate representation are positive definite. This implies that time-reversal symmetry cannot be spontaneously broken. In this article, we review our progress in studing a class of new states of unconventional Bose-Einstein condensations beyond this paradigm. These states can either be the long-lived metastable states of ultracold bosons in high orbital bands in optical lattices as a result of the orbital Hund's rule interaction, or the ground states of spinful bosons with spin-orbit coupling linearly dependent on momentum. In both cases, Feynman's argument does not apply. The resultant many-body wavefunctions are complex-valued and thus break time-reversal symmetry spontaneously. Exotic phenomena in these states include the Bose-Einstein condenstion at nonzero momentum, the ordering of orbital angular momentum moments, the half-quantum vortex, and the spin texture of skyrmions.