2004/05/25 by Sankalpa Ghosh
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.stat-mech
published as Phase Transitions, Vol 77, Nos. 5-7,pp. 625-676 (2004) · Latex file, 2 figures, appeared in a Special Issue of Phase Transitions, Ed. S. Puri
arxiv created 2004/05/25 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
The occurrence of vortices in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) enables a description of their superfluid behaviour. In this article we present a pedagogical introduction to the vortex physics in trapped atomic BECs. The mechanism of the vortex nucleation in an atomic BEC is discussed in detail. We also discuss a recently proposed approach which treats the problem of vortex nucleation using a one-particle Schrodinger equation with non-local and chiral boundary conditions.