Vortices on demand in multicomponent Bose-Einstein condensates

We present a simple mechanism to produce vortices at any desired spatial locations in harmonically trapped Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) with multicomponent spin states coupled to external transverse and axial magnetic fields. The vortices appear at the spatial points where the spin-transverse field interaction vanishes and, depending on the multipolar magnetic field order, the vortices can acquire different predictable topological charges. We explicitly demonstrate our findings, both numerically and analytically, by analyzing a 2D BEC via the Gross-Pitaevskii equation for atomic systems with either two or three internal states. We further show that by a spontaneous symmetry-breaking mechanism, vortices can appear in any spin component, unless symmetry is externally broken at the outset by an axial field. We suggest that this scenario may be tested using an ultracold gas of Rb-87 occupying all three F = 1 states in an optical trap.