Creation of Skyrmions in a Spinor Bose-Einstein Condensate
  We propose a scheme for the creation of skyrmions (coreless vortices) in a Bose-Einstein condensate with hyperfine spin F=1. In this scheme, four traveling-wave laser beams, with Gaussian or Laguerre-Gaussian transverse profiles, induce Raman transitions with an anomalous dependence on the laser polarization, thereby generating the optical potential required for producing skyrmions. 
Karl-Peter Marzlin, Weiping Zhang, and Barry C. Sanders