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arXiv:cond-mat/0101051 · Physical Review Letters

Stationary States of a Rotating Bose-Einstein Condensate: Routes to Vortex Nucleation

Kirk W. Madison, Frédéric Chevy, Vincent Bretin, Jean Dalibard

Published May 14, 2001• 382 citations
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Abstract

Using a focused laser beam we stir a 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a magnetic trap. We observe that the steady states of the condensate correspond to an elliptic cloud, stationary in the rotating frame. These steady states depend nonlinearly on the stirring parameters (amplitude and frequency), and various solutions can be reached experimentally depending on the path followed in this parameter space. These states can be dynamically unstable and we observe that such instabilities lead to vortex nucleation in the condensate.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.86.4443

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Using a focused laser beam we stir a 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a magnetic trap. We observe that the steady states of the condensate correspond to an elliptic cloud, stationary in the rotating frame. These steady states depend nonlinearly on the stirring parameters (amplitude and frequency), and various solutions can be reached experimentally depending on the path followed in this parameter space. These states can be dynamically unstable and we observe that such instabilities lead to vortex nucleation in the condensate.
We consider a Bose-Einstein condensate subject to a rotating harmonic potential, in connection with recent experiments leading to the formation of vortices. We use the classical hydrodynamic approximation to the nonlinear Schrödinger equation to determine almost analytically the evolution of the condensate. We predict that this evolution can exhibit dynamical instabilities, for the stirring procedure previously demonstrated at ENS and for a new stirring procedure that we put forward. These instabilities take place within the range of stirring frequency and amplitude for which vortices are produced experimentally. They provide therefore an initiating mechanism for vortex nucleation.
We studied the nucleation of vortices in a Bose-Einstein condensate stirred by a laser beam. The vortex cores were observed using time-of-flight absorption imaging. Depending on the stirrer size, either discrete resonances or a broad response was visible as the stir frequency was varied. Stirring beams small compared to the condensate size generated vortices below the critical rotation frequency for the nucleation of surface modes, suggesting a local mechanism of generation. In addition, we observed the centrifugal distortion of the condensate due to the rotating vortex lattice and found evidence for bent vortices.
A theoretical study of vortex-lattice formation in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates confined by a rotating elliptical trap is presented. For the conventional case of purely s-wave interatomic interactions, this is done through a consideration of both hydrodynamic equations and time-dependent simulations of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. We discriminate three distinct, experimentally testable regimes of instability: ripple, interbranch , and catastrophic . Additionally, we generalize the classical hydrodynamical approach to include long-range dipolar interactions, showing how the static solutions and their stability in the rotating frame are significantly altered. This enables us to examine the routes towards unstable dynamics, which, in analogy to conventional condensates, may lead to vortex-lattice formation.