corner
corner
APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 99 » Issue 20
< Previous Article | Next Article >

Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 200403 (2007) [4 pages]

Spontaneous Splitting of a Quadruply Charged Vortex

Download: PDF (789 kB) Buy this article Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

T. Isoshima1, M. Okano1, H. Yasuda1, K. Kasa1, J. A. M. Huhtamäki2, M. Kumakura3,4, and Y. Takahashi1,5
1Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan
2Laboratory of Physics, Helsinki University of Technology, P. O. Box 4100, FI-02015 TKK, Finland
3Graduate School of Engineering, University of Fukui, Bunkyo, Fukui 910-8507, Japan
4PRESTO, JST, 4-1-8 Honcho Kawaguchi, Saitama 332-0012, Japan
5CREST, JST, 4-1-8 Honcho Kawaguchi, Saitama 332-0012, Japan

Received 7 December 2006; published 14 November 2007

We studied the splitting instability of a quadruply charged vortex both experimentally and theoretically. The density defect, which is a signature of the vortex core, is experimentally observed to deform into a linear shape. The deformed defect is theoretically confirmed to be an array of four linearly aligned singly charged vortices. The array of vortices rotates and precesses simultaneously with different angular velocities. The initial state of the system is not rotationally symmetric, which enables spontaneous splitting without external perturbations.

© 2007 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.200403
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.200403
PACS:
03.75.Lm, 03.75.Kk, 03.75.Mn
 
< Previous Article | Next Article >