Spin-orbit coupled polariton condensates in a radially-periodic potential: Multiring vortices and rotating solitons

Abstract: We address evolution of a spinor polariton condensate in radially periodic potentials. Such potentials allow for the observation of novel nonlinear excitations and support a variety of dynamically stable soliton states never demonstrated before in polariton condensates, including ring-like solitons with density peaks located in different radial minima of the potential and extended dynamically stable multiring patterns. Among the advantages of the system is that azimuthal modulational instabilities are suppressed due to dominating repulsive interactions between polaritons with the same spin, thereby allowing for the stabilization of radially-symmetric states. The representative feature of this system is that spin-orbit coupling between different spinor components requires them to carry different topological charges. Radially-symmetric states carrying different combinations of topological charges are discussed. Radially symmetric potentials also support stable rotating multipeaked solitons, whose properties unexpectedly depend not only on the magnitude of the rotation velocity, but also on its sign, i.e., on the rotation direction. The latter property is a consequence of spin-orbit coupling which breaks the equivalence between clockwise and counterclockwise rotations. The multiring structures are shown to be robust against unavoidable losses and are therefore amenable to observations with the presently available experimental techniques.