Work

Spontaneous Rotating Vortex Lattices in a Pumped Decaying Condensate

Year: 2008

Type: article

Abstract: Injection and decay of particles in an inhomogeneous quantum condensate can significantly change its behavior. We model trapped, pumped, decaying condensates by a complex Gross-Pitaevskii equation and analyze the density and currents in the steady state. With homogeneous pumping, rotationally symmetric solutions are unstable. Stability may be restored by a finite pumping spot. However if the pumping spot is larger than the Thomas-Fermi cloud radius, then rotationally symmetric solutions are replaced by solutions with spontaneous arrays of vortices. These vortex arrays arise without any rotation of the trap, spontaneously breaking rotational symmetry.

Source: Physical Review Letters

DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.100.250401

Authors: Jonathan Keeling, Natalia G. Berloff

Institution: University of Cambridge

Language: English

Topic: Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates

Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Pembroke College, University of Cambridge

Awards: Mathematical models of superfluid turbulence, Macroscopic quantum coherence in non-equilibrium and driven quantum systems, G5007707147