Emergence of Bloch Bands in a Rotating Bose-Einstein Condensate

A rotating Bose-Einstein condensate is shown to exhibit a Bloch band structure even in the absence of a periodic potential. Vortices enter the condensate via Bragg reflection if the frequency of a rotating drive is adiabatically increased or decreased, or if the interaction is adiabatically changed at a constant rotating drive. A localized state analogous to a gap soliton in a periodic system is predicted to occur near the edge of the Brillouin zone.