Zhang, Yong-ChangZhou, Zheng-WeiMalomed, Boris A.Pu, Han2016-06-102016-06-102015Zhang, Yong-Chang, Zhou, Zheng-Wei, Malomed, Boris A., et al.. "Stable Solitons in Three Dimensional Free Space without the Ground State: Self-Trapped Bose-Einstein Condensates with Spin-Orbit Coupling." <i>Physical Review Letters,</i> 115, no. 25 (2015) American Physical Society: 253902. http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.253902.https://hdl.handle.net/1911/90483By means of variational methods and systematic numerical analysis, we demonstrate the existence of metastable solitons in three dimensional (3D) free space, in the context of binary atomic condensates combining contact self-attraction and spin-orbit coupling, which can be engineered by available experimental techniques. Depending on the relative strength of the intra- and intercomponent attraction, the stable solitons feature a semivortex or mixed-mode structure. In spite of the fact that the local cubic self-attraction gives rise to the supercritical collapse in 3D, and hence the setting produces no true ground state, the solitons are stable against small perturbations, motion, and collisions.engArticle is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.Journal articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.253902