Materials with reduced dimensionalities, such as 2D and quasi-1D systems, are associated with a variety of instabilities accompanied by a wealth of phase transitions. This thesis treats four systems, each consisting of a ...

We theoretically explore atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) subject to position-dependent spin-orbit coupling (SOC). This SOC can be produced by cyclically laser coupling four internal atomic ground (or metastable) ...