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

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to generate complex vortex configurations in a Bose-Einstein condensate by transferring orbital angular momentum from holographically shaped light beams, verified through interferometry.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel holographic light beam technique for creating customizable vortex structures in Bose-Einstein condensates, including phase and spin textures.

Findings

Successful transfer of orbital angular momentum to BECs

Verification of vortex phase patterns via interferometry

Creation of vortices with arbitrary charge and geometry

Abstract

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.