Variational Approaches to Two-Dimensionally Symmetry-Broken Dipolar Bose–Einstein Condensates

It has been shown that quantum fluctuations in dipolar Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) lead to a stabilisation against collapse, thereby providing access to a range of states with different symmetries. In this paper, we discuss variational approaches to approximately determine the phase diagrams for dipolar BECs that are trapped along the dipolar orientation and otherwise infinite in the perpendicular direction (thermodynamic limit). The two-dimensional symmetry breaking occurs in the plane perpendicular to the polarisation axis. We show in detail how to derive approximate expressions that are valid in a region where modulations to an otherwise unmodulated perfect superfluid emerge gradually with a small modulation amplitude and compare the results to rigorous numerics.