  With the imminent advent of mesoscopic rotating BECs in the lowest Landau
level (LLL) regime, we explore LLL vortex nucleation. An exact many-body
analysis is presented in a weakly elliptical trap for up to 400 particles.
Striking non-mean field features are exposed at filling factors >>1 . Eg near
the critical rotation frequency pairs of energy levels approach each other with
exponential accuracy. A physical interpretation is provided by requantising a
mean field theory, where 1/N plays the role of Planck's constant, revealing two
vortices cooperatively tunneling between classically degenerate energy minima.
The tunnel splitting variation is described in terms of frequency, particle
number and ellipticity.
