Ground state and vortex states of bosons in an anisotropic trap: A variational approach

We propose a simple variational form of the wave function to describe the ground state and vortex states of a system of weakly interacting Bose gas in an anisotropic trap. The proposed wave function is valid for a wide range of the particle numbers in the trap. It also works well in the case of attractive interaction between the atoms. Further, it provides an easy and fast method to calculate the physical quantities of interest. The results compare very well with those obtained by purely numerical techniques. Using our wave function we have been able to verify, for the first time, the predicted behaviour of aspect ratio.Comment: Revised version, To appear in the special issue of European Physical Journal