Vortices in Bose-Einstein condensate dark matter

Abstract

If dark matter in the galactic halo is composed of bosons that form a Bose-Einstein condensate then it is likely that the rotation of the halo will lead to the nucleation of vortices. After a review of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, the Thomas-Fermi approximation and vortices in general, we consider vortices in detail. We find strong bounds for the boson mass, interaction strength, the shape and quantity of vortices in the halo, the critical rotational velocity for the nucleation of vortices and, in the Thomas-Fermi regime, an exact solution for the mass density of a single, axisymmetric vortex.