Single vortex states in a confined Bose-Einstein condensate

S. Komineas, N. R. Cooper, and N. Papanicolaou
Phys. Rev. A 72, 053624 – Published 21 November 2005

Abstract

It has been demonstrated experimentally that non-axisymmetric vortices precess around the center of a Bose-Einstein condensate. Two types of single vortex states have been observed, usually referred to as the S vortex and the U vortex. We study theoretically the single vortex excitations in spherical and elongated condensates as a function of the interaction strength. We solve numerically the Gross-Pitaevskii equation and calculate the angular momentum as a function of precession frequency. The existence of two types of vortices means that we have two different precession frequencies for each angular momentum value. As the interaction strength increases the vortex lines bend and the precession frequencies shift to lower values. We establish that for given angular momentum the S vortex has higher energy than the U vortex in a rotating elongated condensate. We show that the S vortex is related to the solitonic vortex, which is a nonlinear excitation in the nonrotating system. For small interaction strengths the S vortex is related to the dark soliton. In the dilute limit a lowest Landau level calculation provides an analytic description of these vortex modes in terms of the harmonic oscillator states.

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  • Received 25 August 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.72.053624

©2005 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

S. Komineas and N. R. Cooper

  • Theory of Condensed Matter Group, Cavendish Laboratory, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HE, United Kingdom

N. Papanicolaou

  • Department of Physics, University of Crete, and Research Center of Crete, Heraklion, Greece

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Issue

Vol. 72, Iss. 5 — November 2005

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