Ground states of two-component condensates in a harmonic plus Gaussian trap

The possible symmetry preserving and symmetry breaking ground states of a two-dimensional, two-component Bose-Einstein condensate are classified in terms of the intercomponent and intracomponent interaction strengths and in terms of the parameters of the trapping potential, which is taken to be harmonic plus Gaussian. An effective potential can be defined which shows that the symmetry preserving ground states of the total density are either disks or annuli. The possibilities to compose a total density of these forms gives rise to a number of different ground states of the individual components’ density profiles. Copyright EDP Sciences, SIF, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013