Bose condensates at high angular momenta - art. no. 053604

We exploit the analogy with the quantum Hall (QH) system to study weakly in teracting bosons in a harmonic trap. For a delta -function interaction pote ntial the "yrast" states with L greater than or equal toN(N-1) are degenera te, and we show how this can be understood in terms of Haldane exclusion st atistics. We present spectra for four and eight particles obtained by numer ical and algebraic methods, and demonstrate how a more general hard-core po tential lifts the degeneracies on the yrast line. The exact wave functions for N=4 are compared with trial states constructed from composite fermions (CF), and the possibility of using CF states to study the low L region at h igh N is discussed.