Coherent disintegration and stability of vortices in trapped Bose condensates

We consider the intrinsic stability of the vortex states of a pure Bose-Ein stein condensate confined in a harmonic potential under the effects of a co herent atom-atom interaction. We find that stable vortices can be supported and vortex stability can be controlled by changing the interparticle inter action strength. At unstable regimes, a vortex will spontaneously disintegr ate into states with different angular momenta even without external pertur bations, with the lifetime determined by its imaginary excitation frequenci es. [S1050-2947(99)07602-7].