Phase separation and metastability in a mixture of spin-1 and spin-2 Bose-Einstein condensates

We investigate the ground state and dynamics of a mixture of spin-1 and spin-2 Bose-Einstein condensates of ⁸⁷Rb atoms. For the experimentally measured interaction coefficients, the ground state exhibits phase separation between the spin-1 ferromagnetic state and the spin-2 nematic state. At the interface between them, a partially polarized spin state emerges. The uniformly mixed state of the spin-1 polar state and spin-2 biaxial nematic state is metastable, and the phase separation via nucleation can be triggered by a local perturbation.