We studied the dynamics of quadruply quantized vortices in 87 Rb Bose–Einstein condensates. Vortices were created in magnetically trapped condensates with hyperfine spin F = 2 by employing topological phase imprinting technique, wherein the direction of atomic spin is adiabatically reversed by applying a bias magnetic field. Vortices were observed for a holding time of up to 10 ms. Disappearance of the vortices was attributed to considerable expansion and excitation of the condensates, which were caused by the distortion of the magnetic potential. In order to observe the long-term behavior of the vortices, we transferred the condensates to a crossed-type optical dipole force trap after creating the vortices. In this case, the vortices were observed for a holding time of up to 22 ms. We also observed density profiles, which indicated the presence of split vortices.
Topological phase imprinting is a unique technique for vortex formation in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of an alkali-metal gas, in that it does not involve rotation: the BEC is trapped in a quadrupole field with a uniform bias field which is reversed adiabatically leading to vortex formation at the center of the magnetic trap. The scenario has been experimentally verified by Leanhardt et al. employing
23Na atoms. Recently similar experiments have been conducted by Hirotani et al. in which a BEC of
87Rb atoms was used. In the latter experiments the authors found that fine-tuning of the field reverse time
Trev is required to achieve stable vortex formation. Otherwise, they often observed vortex fragmentation or a condensate without a vortex. It is shown in this paper that this behavior can be attributed to the heavy mass of the
Rb atom. The confining potential, which depends on the eigenvalue
mB of the hyperfine spin $\mathbit{F}$ along the magnetic field, is now shifted by the gravitational field perpendicular to the vortex line. Then the positions of two weak-field-seeking states with
mB=1 and 2 deviate from each other. This effect is more prominent for BECs with a heavy atomic mass, for which the deviation is greater and, moreover, the Thomas-Fermi radius is smaller. We found, by solving the Gross-Pitaevskii equation numerically, that two condensates interact in a very complicated way leading to fragmentation of vortices, unless
Trev is properly tuned.
Vortices were imprinted in a Bose-Einstein condensate using topological phases. Sodium condensates held in a Ioffe-Pritchard magnetic trap were transformed from a nonrotating state to one with quantized circulation by adiabatically inverting the magnetic bias field along the trap axis. Using surface wave spectroscopy, the axial angular momentum per particle of the vortex states was found to be consistent with 2 variant Planck's over 2pi or 4 variant Planck's over 2pi, depending on the hyperfine state of the condensate.
A quadruply-charged quantized vortex has been created successfully in the 87 Rb Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC). The condensate was confined in a cloverleaf magnetic trap, and the vortex was formed by the reversal of the axial magnetic field. The vortex could be observed only in a holding time of about 1 ms, which was much shorter than that reported in the Na BEC, and the vortex position was also unstable in the BEC. To overcome these experimental difficulties, we took the following two measures and improved the vortex formation: (i) axial confinement with a FORT, which prevents the BEC from axial expansion after the field reversal, and (ii) compensation of gravity with a blue-detuned laser beam, which removes the gravitational sag.
We demonstrate Bose-Einstein condensation of rubidium atoms in a simple low-power magnetic trap. This trap combines the quadrupole with the Ioffe configuration (QUIC trap) and consists of just three coils. Magneto-optically trapped
87Rb atoms are first loaded into the linear trapping potential of a magnetic quadrupole, which is then converted into the parabolic geometry of an Ioffe trap. During this process two spherical quadrupole traps with perpendicular axes merge and the trapped atomic cloud moves close to the magnetic field producing coils, resulting in tight confinement of the atoms while the power dissipation of the trap remains low. The magnetically trapped atoms are cooled to below the phase transition of Bose-Einstein condensation by rf-induced evaporation.
We investigate several mechanisms of vortex creation during splitting of a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a magnetic double-well trap controlled by a pair of current carrying wires and bias magnetic fields. Our study is motivated by a recent MIT experiment on splitting BECs with a similar trap [Y. Shin et al., Phys. Rev. A 72, 021604 (2005)], where an unexpected fork-like structure appeared in the interference fringes indicating the presence of a singly quantized vortex in one of the interfering condensates. It is well known that in a spin-1 BEC in a quadrupole trap, a doubly quantized vortex is topologically produced by a ``slow'' reversal of bias magnetic field
Bz. Since in the experiment a doubly quantized vortex had never been seen, Shin et al. ruled out the topological mechanism and concentrated on the nonadiabatic mechanical mechanism for explanation of the vortex creation. We find, however, that in the magnetic trap considered both mechanisms are possible: singly quantized vortices can be formed in a spin-1 BEC topologically (for example, during the magnetic field switching-off process). We therefore provide a possible alternative explanation for the interference patterns observed in the experiment. We also present a numerical example of creation of singly quantized vortices due to ``fast'' splitting; i.e., by a dynamical (nonadiabatic) mechanism.