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.
In a Bose-Einstein condensate of
87Rb (F=2,mF=2) atoms we have topologically created a quantized vortex with a charge of 4 by reversing the magnetic field of the trap. Experimental conditions of reversal time and initial magnetic field strength for the successful vortex creation were restricted within narrower ranges, compared to those in the case of the
23Na condensate. The experimental difficulty was explained in terms of a non-negligible gravitational sag arising from its large atomic mass. We have successfully stabilized the vortex formation by compensating gravity with a blue-detuned laser beam.
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.