COHERENT DISINTEGRATION AND STABILITY OF VORTICES IN TRAPPED BOSE CONDENSATES

We consider the intrinsic stability of the vortex states of a pure Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a harmonic potential under the effects of coherent atom-atom interaction. We find that stable vortices can be supported, and that vortex stability can be controlled by changing the inter-particle interaction strength. At unstable regimes, a vortex will spontaneously disintegrate into states with different angular momenta even without external perturbations, with the lifetime determined by its imaginary excitation frequencies.