Rapidly rotating Bose-Einstein condensates in anharmonic potentials
G. M. Kavoulakis, Gordon Baym
Rapidly rotating Bose-Einstein condensates confined in anharmonic traps can exhibit a rich variety of vortex phases, including a vortex lattice, a vortex lattice with a hole, and a giant vortex. Using an augmented Thomas-Fermi variational approach to determine the ground state of the condensate in the rotating frame -- valid for sufficiently strongly interacting condensates -- we determine the transitions between these three phases for a quadratic-plus-quartic confining potential. Combining the present results with previous numerical simulations of small rotating condensates in such anharmonic potentials, we delineate the general structure of the zero temperature phase diagram.
arXiv:cond-mat/0212596•New Journal of Physics•May 30, 2003•91 citations