Self-Organized Superfluid States in Gravity and Heat Flow

Abstract

When 4 He is heated from above near the superfluid transition, there can appear a self-organized region, either in normal fluid or superfluid, with the temperature gradient equal to the transition temperature gradient. When it is in a superfluid state, there can be two regimes. Regime M is realized relatively far from the superfluid transition, where thermal resistance due to vortices is described in terms of the conventional Gorter–Mellink mutual friction. In regime G vortices are densely generated, where the line density in units of ξ−2 is much larger than in any other previous experiments. Such a self-organized superfluid can coexist with a normal fluid or a superfluid containing only a small number of vortices in a dynamical steady state.