The nonlinear Dirac equation in Bose-Einstein condensates: Vortex solutions and spectra in a weak harmonic trap

Abstract: We analyze the vortex solution space of the $(2 +1)$-dimensional nonlinear Dirac equation for bosons in a honeycomb optical lattice at length scales much larger than the lattice spacing. Dirac point relativistic covariance combined with s-wave scattering for bosons leads to a large number of vortex solutions characterized by different functional forms for the internal spin and overall phase of the order parameter. We present a detailed derivation of these solutions which include skyrmions, half-quantum vortices, Mermin-Ho and Anderson-Toulouse vortices for vortex winding $\ell = 1$. For $\ell \ge 2$ we obtain topological as well as non-topological solutions defined by the asymptotic radial dependence. For arbitrary values of $\ell$ the non-topological solutions are bright ring-vortices which explicitly demonstrate the confining effects of the Dirac operator. We arrive at solutions through an asymptotic Bessel series, algebraic closed-forms, and using standard numerical shooting methods. By including a harmonic potential to simulate a finite trap we compute the discrete spectra associated with radially quantized modes. We demonstrate the continuous spectral mapping between the vortex and free particle limits for all of our solutions.