Winding up by a quench: vortices in the wake of rapid Bose-Einstein condensation

Abstract

A second order phase transition induced by a rapid quench can lock out topological defects with densities far exceeding their equilibrium expectation values. We use quantum kinetic theory to show that this mechanism, originally postulated in the cosmological context, and analysed so far only on the mean field classical level, should allow spontaneous generation of vortex lines in trapped Bose-Einstein condensates of simple topology, or of winding number in toroidal condensates.

Comments: 4 pages, 2 figures; misprint corrected