Giant vortices in combined harmonic and quartic traps (6 pages)

E. Zaremba, Han Fu

Amandine Aftalion, Ionut Danaila

We consider a rotating Bose-Einstein condensate confined in combined harmonic and quartic traps, following recent experiments [V. Bretin, S. Stock, Y. Seurin, and J. Dalibard, Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 050403 (2004)]. We investigate numerically the behavior of the wave function which solves the three-dimensional Gross Pitaevskii equation and analyze in detail the structure of vortices. For a quartic-plus-harmonic potential, as the angular velocity increases, the vortex lattice evolves into a vortex array with hole. The merging of vortices into the hole is highly three dimensional, starting from the top and bottom of the condensate to reach the center. We also investigate the case of a quartic-minus-harmonic potential, not covered by experiments or previous numerical works. For intermediate repulsive potentials, we show that the transition to a vortex array with hole takes place for lower angular velocities, when the lattice is made up of a small number of vortices. For the strong repulsive case, a transition from a giant vortex to a hole with a circle of vortices around is observed.

Jong-kwan Kim, Alexander L. Fetter

A two-dimensional rapidly rotating Bose-Einstein condensate in a harmonic plus quartic trap is expected to have unusual vortex states that do not occur in a pure harmonic trap. At a critical rotation speed ${\ensuremath{\Omega}}_{h}$, a central hole appears in the condensate, and at some faster rotation speed ${\ensuremath{\Omega}}_{g}$, the system undergoes a transition to a giant vortex state with pure irrotational flow. Using a time-dependent variational analysis, we study the behavior of an annular condensate with a single concentric ring of vortices. The transition to a giant vortex state is investigated by comparing the energy of the two equilibrium states (the ring of vortices and the giant vortex) and also by studying the dynamical stability of small excitation modes of the ring of vortices.

Leo Radzihovsky, Daniel E. Sheehy

Iwo Białynicki‐Birula

Han Fu, E. Zaremba

We consider a rapidly rotating Bose-condensed gas in a harmonic-plus-quartic trap. At sufficiently high rotation rates, the condensate acquires an annular geometry with the superposition of a vortex lattice. With increasing rotation rate, the lattice evolves into a single ring of vortices. Of interest is the transition from this state to the giant vortex state in which the circulation is carried by only a central vortex. By analyzing the Gross-Pitaevskii energy functional variationally, we have been able to map out the phase boundary between these two states as a function of the rotation rate and the various trapped gas parameters. For strong interactions, the transition is first order. Our variational results are in good qualitative agreement with those obtained by means of a direct numerical solution of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.