Vortex formation in a stirred Bose-Einstein condensate

Emmanuel Mercado Gutierrez, P. E. S. Tavares, H. V. Duque +5 more

Leslie O. Baksmaty, N. P. Bigelow

S. Inouye, A. P. Chikkatur, Axel Görlitz +6 more

Kirk W. Madison, Frédéric Chevy, Wendel Wohlleben +1 more

Using a focused laser beam we stir a Bose-Einstein condensate of 87Rb confined in a magnetic trap and observe the formation of a vortex for a stirring frequency exceeding a critical value. At larger rotation frequencies we produce states of the condensate for which up to four vortices are simultaneously present. We have also measured the lifetime of the single vortex state after turning off the stirring laser beam.

Kirk W. Madison, Frédéric Chevy, Wendel Wohlleben +1 more

We stir with a focused laser beam a Bose-Einstein condensate of 87Rb atoms confined in a magnetic trap. We observe the formation of a single vortex for a stirring frequency exceeding a critical value. At larger rotation frequencies we produce states of the condensate for which up to eleven vortices are simultaneously present. We present measurements of the decay of a vortex array once the stirring laser beam is removed.

Kirk W. Madison

Using a focused laser beam we stir a Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a magnetic trap. When the stirring frequency reaches a critical value, we observe the formation of a vortex at the center of the condensate. Using the quadrupolar excitation of the condensate we measure the angular momentum of the condensate with the vortex, and we find that it is ∼ℏ per particle, as expected. For larger stirring frequencies, regular arrays of vortices are observed.