We provide complete phase diagrams describing the ground state of a trapped spinor Bose-Einstein condensate under the combined effects of rotation and a Rashba spin-orbit coupling. The interplay between the different parameters (magnitude of rotation, strength of the spin-orbit coupling, and interaction) leads to a rich ground-state physics that we classify. We explain some features analytically in the Thomas-Fermi approximation, writing the problem in terms of the total density, total phase, and spin. In particular, we analyze the giant skyrmion and find that it is of degree 1 in the strong-segregation case. In some regions of the phase diagrams, we relate the patterns to a ferromagnetic energy.

• Received 3 April 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.88.023610