False-vacuum decay in an ultracold spin-1 Bose gas

We propose an ultracold atom analog of false-vacuum decay using all three states of a spin-1 Bose gas. We consider a one-dimensional system with both radio-frequency and optical Raman couplings between internal states. An advantage of our proposal is the lack of a time-modulated coupling, which can lead to instabilities. Within the elaborate phase structure of the system, we identify an effective Klein-Gordon field and use GrossPitaevskii simulations within the truncated Wigner approximation to model the decay of a metastable state. We examine the dependence of the rate of vacuum decay on particle density for 7Li and 41K and find reasonable agreement with instanton methods.

Automated summary

This study proposes an ultracold atom analog of false-vacuum decay using all three states of a spin-1 Bose gas, avoiding instabilities caused by time-modulated coupling, and examines the dependence of vacuum decay rate on particle density for 7Li and 41K with reasonable agreement with instanton methods.