Phase transitions and emergent gauge potentials in strongly interacting spin-orbit coupled bosons

We use DMRG to map out the phase diagram of two-component spin-orbit coupled bosons in one spatial dimension with strong interactions. We locate phase transitions varying the Rabi coupling and wavevector of the spin-orbit coupling as well as the interaction strength. We then focus our attention near the hard-core limit, where we argue for a mapping to an effective model where density fluctuations see the spin texture as a gauge field. We discuss the experimental feasibility of observing these phase transitions through direct imaging of spin domains.