Vortices in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates: An introduction

The occurrence of vortices in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) enables a description of their super-fluid behavior. In this article, we present a pedagogical introduction the vortex physics in trapped atomic BECs. The mechanism of vortex nucleation in an atomic BEC is discussed in detail. We also discuss a recently proposed approach to the problem of vortex nucleation which uses a one-particle Schrodinger equation with nonlocal and chiral boundary conditions.