Collective-mode dynamics in a spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensate

Recently a spin-orbit-coupled Bose condensate has been realized experimentally using two-photon Raman coupling, and this condensate exhibits two distinct equilibrium phases known as the plane wave phase and the stripe phase at equilibrium. In this Rapid Communication we show that such condensate exhibits unique dynamic behaviors, which originate from interactions and are absent in a noninteracting system. In the plane wave phase, a dipole mode will induce a breathing mode in its perpendicular plane and vice versa. This is a cooperation effect between spin-velocity locking and spin-dependent interaction. While in the stripe phase, a breathing mode will induce the sliding mode of the density stripe along its perpendicular direction. This reflects the fact that the sliding mode is the gapless excitation in this phase due to spontaneous spatial translation symmetry breaking.