Vortex dynamics in cubic-quintic Bose-Einstein condensates

Abstract

We study vortex dynamics in a trapped Bose-Einstein condensate with tunable two- and three-body interactions. The dynamics is governed by two-dimensional cubic-quintic Gross-Pitaevskii equation. A time-dependent variational method has been used to obtain critical rotational frequency and surface mode frequency analytically and are compared with numerical simulation results. An imaginary time propagation method and Crank-Nicolson scheme for discretization have been used for numerical simulation. The numerically calculated average value of the angular momentum per particle shows very clearly its dynamical relation with the time development of the vortex formation. The rotational frequency dependence of the variation of average value of the angular momentum per particle with time shows that vortices form much faster in time for higher rotational frequency. Similarly, the vortex forms much faster in time with an increase of the strength of the repulsive three-body interaction. The simulation of the vortex lattice formation in the condensate shows that the presence of the three-body interactions does not alter the vortex lattice pattern but it helps in the shape deformations of the condensate thereby leading to vortex lattice formation. Likewise, the three-body interactions enable the vortex lattice formation in Bose-Einstein condensates even with attractive two-body interactions and in purely quintic BEC.