Ground States of a Rotating Spin-1 Bose-Einstein Condensate in Box Trap

Abstract

The ground-state phases of rotating spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates confined in three distinct box traps are studied numerically. In circular or square box trap, the combined effects of spin-exchange interaction and rotation lead to replacement of the traditional skyrmion vortices observed in harmonic traps with coreless vortices that exhibit fourfold rotational symmetry. These vortices are nucleated readily from the trap boundary in groups of four. In a triangular box trap, a single skyrmion vortex structure is found at trap center at low rotation frequencies, while additional vortices are all nucleated from the boundary and arrange parallel to the trap edge in the form of vortex chains as the rotation frequency is further increased.