Vortex-lattice melting and critical temperature shift in rotating Bose-Einstein condensates

Abstract

We investigate a shift in the critical temperature of rotating Bose-Einstein condensates mediated by the melting of the vortex lattice. Numerical simulations reveal that this temperature exhibits contrasting behavior depending on the system configuration: a negative shift occurs for fixed trap potentials due to the expansion of the condensate, while a positive shift is observed for fixed volumes, where vortex-lattice rigidity suppresses thermal fluctuations. We introduce a vortex-energy model that captures the role of vortex interactions, the positional energy of the vortex lattice, as well as the phase transition and how the vortex lattice disappears. The findings provide insights into the thermodynamic properties of rotating condensates and the dynamics of vortex-lattice melting, offering potential parallels with other quantum systems such as type-II superconductors.