Driving Bose-Einstein-Condensate vorticity with a rotating normal cloud

We have developed an evaporative cooling technique that accelerates the rotation of an ultracold Rb-87 gas, confined in a static harmonic potential. As a normal gas is evaporatively spun up and cooled below quantum degeneracy, it is found to nucleate vorticity in a Bose-Einstein condensate. Measurements of the condensate's aspect ratio and surface-wave excitations are consistent with effective rigid-body rotation. Rotation rates of up to 94% of the centrifugal limit are inferred. A threshold in the normal cloud's rotation is observed for the intrinsic nucleation of the first vortex. The threshold value lies below the prediction for a nucleation mechanism involving the excitation of surface waves of the condensate.