Quasi-stable quantum vortex knots and links in anisotropic harmonically trapped Bose-Einstein condensates

Abstract

Long-time existence of topologically nontrivial configurations of quantum vortices in the form of torus knots and links in trapped Bose-Einstein condensates is demonstrated numerically within the three-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equation with external anisotropic parabolic potential. We find out parametric domains near the trap anisotropy -- axial over planar frequency trapping ratio $\lambda \approx 1.5-1.6$ where the lifetime of such quasi-stationary rotating vortex structures is many hundreds of typical rotation times. This suggests the potential experimental observability of the structures. We quantify the relevant lifetimes as a function of the model parameters (e.g. $\lambda$) and initial condition parameters of the knot profile.

References in corpus (4)

• Experimental demonstration of painting arbitrary and dynamic potentials for Bose-Einstein condensates
• Bending-wave Instability of a Vortex Ring in a Trapped Bose-Einstein Condensate
• Scattering and leapfrogging of vortex rings in a superfluid
• Parametric instability of oscillations of a vortex ring in a $z$-periodic Bose-Einstein condensate and the recurrence to starting state

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Vortex knots on three-dimensional lattices of nonlinear oscillators coupled by space-varying links