Vortices in dipolar condensates with dominant dipolar interactions

Abstract

We present full three-dimensional numerical calculations of single vortex states in rotating dipolar condensates. We consider a Bose-Einstein condensate of 52Cr atoms with dipole-dipole and s-wave contact interactions confined in an axially symmetric harmonic trap. We obtain the vortex states by numerically solving the Gross-Pitaevskii equation in the rotating frame with no further approximations. We investigate the properties of a single vortex and calculate the critical angular velocity for different values of the s-wave scattering length. We show that, whereas the standard variational approach breaks down in the limit of pure dipolar interactions, exact solutions of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation can be obtained for values of the s-wave scattering length down to zero. The energy barrier for the nucleation of a vortex is calculated as a function of the vortex displacement from the rotation axis for different values of the angular velocity of the rotating trap.

10 pages with 9 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Bose-Einstein condensation of chromium
• Strong dipolar effects in a quantum ferrofluid
• Observation of dipole-dipole interaction in a degenerate quantum gas
• Stabilizing a purely dipolar quantum gas against collapse
• d-wave collapse and explosion of a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate
• Exact hydrodynamics of a trapped dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate
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