Dipolar Bose gas in a highly anharmonic trap

By means of mean-field theory, we have studied the structure and excitation spectrum of a purely dipolar Bose gas in a pancake shaped trap where the confinement in the x-y plane is provided by a highly anharmonic potential, resulting in an almost uniform confinement in the plane. We show that the stable condensates are characterized by marked radially structured density profiles. The stability diagram is calculated by independently varying the strength of the interaction and the trap geometry. By computing the Bogoliubov excitation spectrum near the instability line we show that soft “angular” rotons are responsible for the collapse of the system. The free expansion of the cloud after the trap is released is also studied by means of time-dependent calculations, showing that a prolate cigar-shaped condensate is dynamically stabilized during the expansion, which would otherwise collapse. Dipolar condensates rotating with sufficiently high angular velocity show the formation of multiply quantized giant vortices, while the condensates acquire a ring-shaped form.