Vortex-pair states in spin-orbit-coupled Bose–Einstein condensates with coherent coupling

Three types of vortex-pair are identified in two-component Bose–Einstein condensates (BEC) of different kinds of spin-orbit coupling. One type holds the two vortices in one component of the twocomponent condensates. Both the other two types hold a vortex in each component of the twocomponent condensates, and exhibit meron-pair textures that have either null or unit topological charge, respectively. The cores of the two vortices are connected by a string of the relative phase jump. These vortex pairs can be generated from a vortex-free wave packet by incorporating different non- Abelian gauge field into the BEC. When a Rabi coupling is introduced, the distance between the two cores is effectively controlled by the Rabi coupling strength and a transition of vortex configurations is observed.