Abstract
Bose-Einstein condensation of alkali atoms is different from superfluid 4He in that (1) it has hyperfine spin degrees of freedom, (2) it is a dilute Bose gas for which the weak coupling approximation is applicable, (3) it is a mesoscopic system, (4) the coupling constants and the external potential are easily controllable, and (5) there are variety of techniques to visualize the system. In the present article, we outline several methods leading to the formation of vortices in this system as well as the features of each method.
