title: Local vortex generation and the surface mode spectrum of large Bose-Einstein condensates.
abstract: A combination of analytical and numerical approaches obtains the complete dispersion curve for surface excitations in a condensate held in a plane linear potential. This improvement on previous approximate results yields an accurate formula for the local Landau critical velocity for vortex formation at the surface of a sufficiently large condensate, which agrees very well with recent experiments.
authors.affiliation: Center for Ultracold Atoms, 26-251, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Anglin