Nucleation, growth, and stabilization of Bose-Einstein condensate vortex lattices.

We give a simple unified theory of vortex nucleation and vortex lattice formation in which (i) the thermal cloud plays a crucial role; (ii) the basic process is due to growth of the condensate from a rotating thermal cloud, which provides gain for certain surface modes of nonzero angular momentum; (iii) vortices appear initially as the result of a linear interference between the far fields of the condensate and the surface modes; and (iv) the description applies from the initiation process up to the final stabilization of the lattice. We have simulated the growth of vortex lattices from a rotating thermal cloud, and their production using a rotating trap.