Abstract

We have created vortices in a Bose-Einstein condensate using a topological phase- imprinting technique. Sodium condensates held in a Ioffe-Pritchard magnetic trap were continuously transformed from a non-rotating state to a state with quantized circulation by adiabatically inverting the magnetic bias field along the trap axis. Vortex states were created in condensates magnetically trapped in both the lower and upper ground state hyperfine levels. Using surface wave spectroscopy techniques, we measured the angular momentum per particle to be proportional to the magnetic quantum number of the trapped atoms, in agreement with theoretical expectations.

© 2002 Optical Society of America