Inducing vortices in a Bose-Einstein condensate using holographically produced light beams

Understand

In this paper we demonstrate a technique that can create out-of-equilibrium vortex configurations with almost arbitrary charge and geometry in a Bose-Einstein condensate.

• We coherently transfer orbital angular momentum from a holographically generated light beam to a Rubidium 87 condensate using a two-photon stimulated Raman process.
• Using matter wave interferometry, we verify the phase pattern imprinted onto the atomic wave function for a single vortex and a vortex-antivortex pair.
• In addition to their phase winding, the vortices created with this technique have an associated hyperfine spin texture.