Dynamics of an N-vortex state at small distances

Abstract

We investigate the dynamics of a state of N vortices, placed at the initial instant at small distances from some point, close to the “weight center” of vortices. The general solution of the time-dependent Ginsburg-Landau equation for N vortices in a large time interval is found. For N = 2, the position of the “weight center” of two vortices is time independent. For N ≥ 3, the position of the “weight center” weakly depends on time and is located in the range of the order of a 3, where a is a characteristic distance of a single vortex from the “weight center.” For N = 3, the time evolution of the N-vortex state is fixed by the position of vortices at any time instant and by the values of two small parameters. For N ≥ 4, a new parameter arises in the problem, connected with relative increases in the number of decay modes.