Two-dimensional composite solitons in a spin-orbit-coupled Fermi gas in free space

Abstract

We address a possibility of creating soliton states in oblate binary-fermionic clouds in the framework of the density-functional theory, which includes the spin-orbit coupling (SOC) and nonlinear attraction between spin-up and down-polarized components of the spinor wave function. In the limit when the inter-component attraction is much stronger than the effective intra-component Pauli repulsion, the resulting model also represents a system of Gross-Pitaevskii equations for a binary Bose-Einstein condensate including the SOC effect. We show that the model gives rise to two-dimensional quiescent composite solitons in free space. A stability region is identified for solitons of the mixed-mode type (which feature mixtures of zero-vorticity and vortical terms in both components), while solitons of the other type, semi-vortices (with the vorticity carried by one component) are unstable. Due to breaking of the Galilean invariance by SOC, the system supports moving solitons with velocities up to a specific critical value. Collisions between moving solitons are briefly considered too. The collisions lead, in particular, to a quasi-elastic rebound, or an inelastic outcome, which features partial merger of the solitons.