Renormalization-group calculation of superfluid density and helicity modulus

Abstract

The field-theoretical renormalization-group techniques previously developed for the description of the mestastable phases of isotropic, homogeneous, $d$-dimensional systems, which (close to their critical temperature) can be described in terms of the Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson functional integral with a two-component order parameter, and applied to obtain the scaling form of the helicity modulus, defined as a measure of the free-energy increment associated with a metastable, helical twisting of the order parameter. The general scaling form of this quantity is determined even in the presence of an external helical field, for arbitrary helix pitch and temperature. In the case of vanishing external field, this quantity represents the superfluid density and is a function of the temperature and the superfluid velocity (which corresponds to the inverse of the helix pitch). In the limit of small velocities this expression exhibits the well-known Josephson asymptotic form ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{s}\ensuremath{\sim}{({T}_{c}\ensuremath{-}T)}^{\ensuremath{\nu}(d\ensuremath{-}2)}={({T}_{c}\ensuremath{-}T)}^{2\ensuremath{\beta}\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\eta}}$. An explicit $\ensuremath{\epsilon}=4\ensuremath{-}d$ expansion for the helicity modulus is presented in the case of arbitrary external field to the one-loop approximation.