Stability of regular vortex polygons in Bose-Einstein condensate

Abstract

We consider the problem of the stability of rotating regular vortex N-gons (Thomson configurations) in a Bose-Einstein condensate in a harmonic trap. The dependence of the rotation velocity ω of the Thomson configuration around the center of the trap is obtained as a function of the number of vortices N and the radius of the configuration R. The analysis of the stability of motion of such configurations in the linear approximation is carried out. For N⩽6, regions of orbital stability of configurations in the parameter space are constructed. It is shown that vortex N-gons for N > 6 are unstable for any parameters of the system.