Three coaxial quantized vortex rings in a Bose-Einstein condensate exhibit aperiodic leapfrogging dynamics. It is found that such circular vortex rings are dynamically unstable against deformation breaking axial rotational symmetry. The dynamics of the system are analyzed using the Gross-Pitaevskii and vortex-filament models. The dependence of the instability on the initial arrangement of the vortex rings is investigated. The system is found to be significantly unstable for a specific configuration of the three vortex rings.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.