We propose a scheme to realize a pseudospin-
1/2 model of the ${}^{1}\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Sigma}}(v=0)$ bialkali polar molecules with the spin states corresponding to two sublevels of the first excited rotational level. We show that the effective dipole-dipole interaction between two spin-
1/2 molecules couples the rotational and orbital angular momenta and is highly tunable via a microwave field. We also investigate the ground-state properties of a spin-
1/2 molecular condensate. A variety of nontrivial quantum phases, including the doubly quantized vortex states, are discovered. Our scheme can also be used to create spin-1 model of polar molecules. Thus we show that the ultracold gases of bialkali polar molecules provide a unique platform for studying the spinor condensates of rotating molecules.
We theoretically investigate vortex-lattice phases of rotating spinor Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC's) with a ferromagnetic spin interaction by numerically solving the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The spinor BEC under slow rotation can sustain a rich variety of exotic vortices due to the multicomponent order parameters, such as Mermin-Ho and Anderson-Toulouse coreless vortices (the two-dimensional Skyrmion and meron) and nonaxisymmetric vortices with shifting vortex cores. Here, we present the spin texture of various vortex-lattice states at higher rotation rates and in the presence of an external magnetic field. In addition, the vortex phase diagram is constructed in the plane of the total magnetization
M and the external rotation frequency $\ensuremath{\Omega}$ by comparing the free energies of possible vortices. It is shown that the vortex phase diagrams in the $M\text{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\Omega}$ plane may be divided into two categories: (i) the coreless vortex lattice formed by the several types of Mermin-Ho vortices and (ii) the vortex lattice filling in the cores with the pure polar (antiferromagnetic) state. In particular, it is found that the type-(ii) state forms composite lattices of coreless and polar-core vortices. The difference between type (i) and type (ii) results from the existence of the singularity of the spin textures, which may be experimentally confirmed by the spin imaging within polarized light recently proposed by Carusotto and Mueller. We also discuss the stability of triangular and square lattice states for rapidly rotating condensates.