We study the surface modes of some of the vortex liquids recently found by means of exact diagonalizations in systems of rapidly rotating bosons. In contrast to the surface modes of Bose condensates, we find that the surface waves have a frequency linear in the excitation angular momentum, $ħl>\mathrm{}0.\mathrm{}$ Furthermore, in analogy with the edge waves of electronic quantum Hall states, these excitations are chiral, that is, they can be excited only for values of l that increase the total angular momentum of the vortex liquid. However, differently from the quantum Hall phenomena for electrons, we also find other excitations that are approximately degenerate in the laboratory frame with the surface modes, and which decrease the total angular momentum by l quanta. The surface modes of the Laughlin as well as other scalar and vector boson states are analyzed and their observable properties characterized. We argue that measurement of the response of a vortex liquid to a weak time-dependent potential that imparts angular momentum to the system should provide valuable information for characterizing the vortex liquid. In particular, the intensity of the signal of the surface waves in the dynamic structure factor has been studied and found to depend on the type of vortex liquid. We point out that the existence of surface modes has observable consequences on the density profile of the Laughlin state. These features are due to the strongly correlated behavior of atoms in the vortex liquids. We point out that these correlations should be responsible for a remarkable stability of some vortex liquids with respect to three-body losses.

• Received 20 November 2002

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.67.063613