Paper detail

Thomas-Fermi approximation for coexisting two component Bose-Einstein condensates and nonexistence of vortices for small rotation

We study minimizers of a Gross--Pitaevskii energy describing a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate confined in a radially symmetric harmonic trap and set into rotation. We consider the case of coexistence of the components in the Thomas-Fermi regime, where a small parameter $\ep$ conveys a singular perturbation. The minimizer of the energy without rotation is determined as the positive solution of a system of coupled PDE's for which we show uniqueness. The limiting problem for $\ep =0$ has degenerate and irregular behavior at specific radii, where the gradient blows up. By means of a perturbation argument, we obtain precise estimates for the convergence of the minimizer to this limiting profile, as $\ep$ tends to 0. For low rotation, based on these estimates, we can show that the ground states remain real valued and do not have vortices, even in the region of small density.