Dispersion engineering in spin-orbit coupled spinor $F=1$ condensates driven by negative masses

Abstract: In this paper, we bring out several potential signatures of negative mass regimes while investigating an expanding spin-orbit (SO) coupled spinor $F=1$ Bose-Einstein condensates by analyzing the dispersion relation of the single-particle quantum system. In SO-coupled spinor condensates, a negative mass parameter generates a wave packet that propagates in the opposite direction of the momentum. We analyze the dynamics of spin waves analytically and present a simple approach to investigate the expansion of spinor condensates. In particular, we examine the dynamics when both masses are negative, which results in the spinor condensates splitting into two counter-propagating self-interfering packets (SIPs). Using numerical simulations of the coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations, we demonstrate the density expansion and self-interference patterns with and without magnetization for repulsive and attractive interactions with different coupling parameters. The highlight of our investigation is that we are able to unearth several phenomena observed in experiments, such as self-interfering packets, pileup, modulation instability, slow down, self-trapping, and gap solitons. In particular, the gap soliton exists at the gap created by the intersection of two negative masses.