Surface excitations, shape deformation, and the long-time behavior in a stirred Bose–Einstein condensate

Abstract

The surface excitations, shape deformation, and the formation of persistent current for a Gaussian obstacle potential rotating in a highly oblate Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) are investigated. A vortex dipole can be produced and trapped in the center of the stirrer even for the slow motion of the stirring beam. When the angular velocity of the obstacle is above some critical value, the condensate shape can be deformed remarkably at the corresponding rotation frequency followed by surface wave excitations. After a long enough time, a small number of vortices are found to be either trapped in the condensate or pinned by the obstacle, and a vortex dipole or several vortices can be trapped at the beam center, which provides another way to manipulate the vortex.