Creating atomic Stokes vortices with spin-1 atomic wave functions

The formal correspondences between pseudo-spin-1/2 systems in optics and in atomic physics have provided fertile ground for exploring polarization in atom optics. Previous experimental results demonstrated atomic polarimetry techniques for two-level wave functions and explored wave-field singularities in the multicomponent wave function of a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate using visualization techniques developed in optics [J. T. Schultz, A. Hansen, and N. P. Bigelow, Opt. Lett. 39, 4271 (2014); A. Hansen, J. T. Schultz, and N. P. Bigelow, Optica 3, 355 (2016)]. Here we further this discussion, reexamining the atomic Stokes parameters and Stokes polarimetry in the context of spin-1 systems where the tensor moments of the higher-spin system enrich the physics considerably. We show that our atomic polarimetry methods provide tools to engineer the multipole tensor moments of the higher-spin atomic wave function, and to realize nontrivial couplings between these multipole moments and an atomic center-of-mass orbital angular momentum. The different forms of coupling between internal tensor moments and external angular momenta can be used to realize a variety of topological structures in the atomic wave field. We identify these 𝜋- and 2⁢𝜋-symmetric features in the streamlines of the atomic Stokes fields constructed in analogy with singular optics.