Dynamics of Spinor Condensates Driven by an Inhomogeneous Magnetic Field

A variational wavefunction including the breather, dipole and scissor modes simultaneously is constructed to investigate the collective-excitation dynamics of spin-1 \(^{87}\mathrm{Rb}\) condensates driven by a space- and time-dependent magnetic field. When the Dirac point never enters the condensate, it is shown that the dipole, breather and scissor modes will be all excited driven by the sinusoidal oscillation of the Dirac point, due to the coupling of different collective modes from the inhomogeneity of the magnetic field. A resonance-driving phenomenon is observed. If the Dirac point passes through the condensate, our numerical results agree with most experimental observations (Ray et al. in Nature 505:657, 2014) and find that the center of mass of the condensate does not follow the zero point of the magnetic field. Hopefully, our method can be extended to study the similar dynamics for the other spinor condensates.