Formation of topological vortices during superfluid transition in a rotating vessel

Abstract

Formation of topological defects during symmetry breaking phase transitions via the Kibble mechanism is extensively used in systems ranging from condensed-matter physics to the early stages of the universe. The Kibble mechanism uses topological arguments and predicts equal probabilities for the formation of defects and antidefects. Certain situations, however, require a net bias in the production of defects (or antidefects) during the transition, for example, superfluid transition in a rotating vessel, or flux tubes formation in a superconducting transition in the presence of external magnetic field. In this paper we present a modified Kibble mechanism for a specific system, 4He superfluid transition in a rotating vessel, which can produce the required bias of vortices over antivortices. Our results make distinctive predictions which can be tested in superfluid 4He experiments. These results also have important implications for superfluid phase transitions in rotating neutron stars and also for any superfluid phases of QCD arising in the non-central low-energy heavy-ion collision experiment due to an overall rotation.