Vortex bending and tightly packed vortex lattices in Bose-Einstein condensates -: art. no. 053611

We study in detail the structure of the ground state of elongated rotating Bose-Einstein condensates. This ground state is composed of one or more vortex lines which bend even in completely symmetric setups. This symmetry breaking allows the condensate to smoothly adapt to rotation and to produce tightly packed arrays of vortex lines. The dependence of vortex bending on the relevant parameters is studied.