01183nas a2200121   4500008004100000245007100041210006300112260001800175520077400193100002100967700002200988856005101010       2016                        en  d00aOn the third critical speed for rotating Bose-Einstein condensates0 athird critical speed for rotating BoseEinstein condensates  bAIP Publisher3 aWe study a two-dimensional rotating Bose-Einstein condensate confined by an anharmonic trap in the framework of the Gross-Pitaevskii theory. We consider a rapid rotation regime close to the transition to a giant vortex state. It was proven in Correggi et al. [J. Math. Phys. 53, 095203 (2012)] that such a transition occurs when the angular velocity is of order ε−4, with ε−2 denoting the coefficient of the nonlinear term in the Gross-Pitaevskii functional and ε ≪ 1 (Thomas-Fermi regime). In this paper, we identify a finite value Ωc such that if Ω = Ω0/ε4 with Ω0 > Ωc, the condensate is in the giant vortex phase. Under the same condition, we prove a refined energy asymptotics and an estimate of the winding number of any Gross-Pitaevskii minimizer.1 aDimonte, Daniele1 aCorreggi, Michele  uhttp://urania.sissa.it/xmlui/handle/1963/35246