Dissipative dynamics of vortex arrays in trapped Bose-condensed gases: neutron stars physics on μK scale

We develop a theory of dissipative dynamics of large vortex arrays in trapped Bose-condensed gases. We show that in a static trap the interaction of the vortex array with thermal excitations leads to a non-exponential decay of the vortex structure, and the characteristic lifetime depends on the initial density of vortices. Drawing an analogy with physics of pulsar glitches, we propose an experiment which employs the heating of the thermal cloud in the course of the decay of the vortex array as a tool for a non-destructive study of the vortex dynamics.