Scientists predict coreless vortex in ultracold atoms
Thursday, December 5, 2013 - 09:01
in Physics & Chemistry
Swirling, persistent vortices can be created in superfluid helium. Generally no atoms sit at the eye of these miniature hurricanes. Things might be different in condensates of ultracold atoms. Theorists at the Joint Quantum Institute predict that for some elements a vortex of atoms can be produced which pivots around another sample of atoms at rest in the middle. Such a quantum gimbal has been observed in condensates of two atomic species but never before in a swarm of exclusively one type of atoms in a state of lowest energy.