Superfluid Dynamics Research Articles

Conformal maps and superfluid vortex dynamics on curved and bounded surfaces: The case of an elliptical boundary

Conformal maps and superfluid vortex dynamics on curved and bounded surfaces: The case of an elliptical boundary

Stability and dynamics of atom-molecule superfluids near a narrow Feshbach resonance

Stability and dynamics of atom-molecule superfluids near a narrow Feshbach resonance

Attenuating dynamics of strongly interacting fermionic superfluids in SYK solvable models

Quench dynamics of fermionic superfluids are an active topic both experimentally and theoretically. Using the BCS theory, such non-equilibrium problems can be reduced to nearly independent spin dynamics, only with a time-dependent mean-field pairing term. This results in persisting oscillations of the pairing strength in certain parameter regimes. However, experiments have observed that the oscillations decay rapidly when the interaction becomes strong, such as in the unitary Fermi gas [Phys. Rev. Res. 3, 023205 (2021)]. Theoretical analysis on this matter is still absent. In this work, we construct an SYK-like model to analyze the effect of strong interactions in a one-dimensional BCS system. We employ the large-NN approximation and a Green’s function-based technique to solve the equilibrium problem and quench dynamics. Our findings reveal that a strong SYK interaction suppresses the pairing order. Additionally, we verify that the system quickly thermalizes with SYK interactions, whether it involves intrinsic pairing order or proximity effect, resulting in a rapid decay of the oscillation strength. The decay rates exhibit different scaling laws against SYK interaction, which can be understood in terms of the Boltzmann equation. This work represents a first step towards understanding the attenuating dynamics of strongly interacting fermionic superfluids.

Direct visualization of the quantum vortex lattice structure, oscillations, and destabilization in rotating 4He.

Quantum vortices are a core element of superfluid dynamics and elusively hold the keys to our understanding of energy dissipation in these systems. We show that we are able to visualize these vortices in the canonical and higher-symmetry case of a stationary rotating superfluid bucket. Using direct visualization, we quantitatively verify Feynman's rule linking the resulting quantum vortex density to the imposed rotational speed. We make the most of this stable configuration by applying an alternative heat flux aligned with the axis of rotation. Moderate amplitudes led to the observation of collective wave mode propagating along the vortices, and high amplitudes led to quantum vortex interactions. When increasing the heat flux, this ensemble of regimes defines a path toward quantum turbulence in rotating 4He and sets a baseline to consolidate the descriptions of all quantum fluids.

Low-dimensional quantum gases in curved geometries

Atomic gases confined in curved geometries are characterized by distinctive features that are absent in their flat counterparts, such as periodic boundaries, local curvature and nontrivial topologies. The recent experiments with shell-shaped quantum gases and the study of ring-shaped superfluids point out that the manifold of a quantum gas could soon become a controllable feature, thus enabling the fundamental study of curved many-body quantum systems. In this Perspective article, we review the main geometries realized in the experiments, analysing the theoretical and experimental status on their phase transitions and on the superfluid dynamics. As our outlook, we delineate the study of vortices, the few-body physics and the search for analogue models in various curved geometries as the most promising research areas. Atomic gases, usually confined in flat geometries, are now experimentally realized also in curved settings. This Perspective article analyses their many-body physics in the available geometries of rings and shells and discusses the open research questions.

Mass-driven vortex collisions in flat superfluids

Quantum vortices are often endowed with an effective inertial mass, due, for example, to massive particles in their cores. Such ``massive vortices'' display new phenomena beyond the standard picture of superfluid vortex dynamics, where mass is neglected. In this work, we demonstrate that massive vortices are allowed to collide, as opposed to their massless counterparts. We propose a scheme to generate controllable, repeatable, deterministic collisional events in pairs of quantum vortices. We demonstrate two mass-driven fundamental processes: (i) the annihilation of two counter-rotating vortices and (ii) the merging of two corotating vortices, thus pointing out new mechanisms supporting incompressible-to-compressible kinetic-energy conversion, as well as doubly quantized vortex stabilization in flat superfluids.

Dissipative dynamics of a fermionic superfluid with two-body losses

Dissipative dynamics of a fermionic superfluid with two-body losses

Ultrafast nonequilibrium dynamics of rotons in superfluid helium

Short-time dynamics of superfluids far from equilibrium remains largely unknown, despite its importance for key processes in these systems. Here, we describe a method for locally perturbing the density of superfluid helium via the excitation of roton pairs with ultrashort laser pulses. By measuring the time dependence of this perturbation, we track the nonequilibrium dynamics of the two-roton states on femtosecond and picosecond timescales. Our results reveal an ultrafast equilibration of roton pairs as they thermalize with the colder equilibrium quasiparticle gas. Future applications of this technique to different temperature and pressure regimes, in various superfluids, will enable to probe rapid nucleation and decay processes, as well as metastable Bose-Einstein condensates of rotons and roton pairs.

Superfluid dynamics, equilibrium conditions, and centripetal forces

Thermodynamics of superfluids is revisited, clarifying two points. First, the density and pressure distribution for given normal and superfluid velocities is obtained, with the finding that counter heat currents give rise to a pressure depression and a centripetal force. Second, it is shown that the ideal two-fluid hydrodynamics is simply an assembly of equilibrium conditions—expressions of entropy being maximal.

Imprinting Persistent Currents in Tunable Fermionic Rings

Persistent currents in annular geometries have played an important role in disclosing the quantum phase coherence of superconductors and mesoscopic electronic systems. Ultracold atomic gases in multiply connected traps also exhibit long-lived supercurrents, and have attracted much interest both for fundamental studies of superfluid dynamics and as prototypes for atomtronic circuits. Here, we report on the realization of supercurrents in homogeneous, tunable fermionic rings. We gain exquisite, rapid control over quantized persistent currents in all regimes of the BCS-BEC crossover through a universal phase-imprinting technique, attaining on-demand circulations $w$ as high as 9. High-fidelity read-out of the superfluid circulation state is achieved by exploiting an interferometric protocol, which also yields local information about the superfluid phase around the ring. In the absence of externally introduced perturbations, we find the induced metastable supercurrents to be as long-lived as the atomic sample. Conversely, we trigger and inspect the supercurrent decay by inserting a single small obstacle within the ring. For circulations higher than a critical value, the quantized current is observed to dissipate via the emission of vortices, i.e., quantized phase slips, which we directly image, in good agreement with numerical simulations. The critical circulation at which the superflow becomes unstable is found to depend starkly on the interaction strength, taking its maximum value for the unitary Fermi gas. Our results demonstrate fast and accurate control of quantized collective excitations in a macroscopic quantum system, and establish strongly interacting fermionic superfluids as excellent candidates for atomtronic applications.

Superfluid vortex dynamics on an ellipsoid and other surfaces of revolution

We present a study of superfluid vortex dynamics on general axisymmetric compact surfaces with no holes. Specifically, we develop a general method to transform conformally from the axisymmetric surface to a plane, where we use familiar methods based on the hydrodynamic stream function. Our approach shows that vortices constitute a Hamiltonian dynamical system, with their angular positions on the surface as canonical variables. The dynamical motion conserves both the total energy and the angular momentum, and it features a marked anticorrelation between the vortex speed and the local curvature of the surface.

Localization dynamics from static and mobile impurities

We study the superfluid response and localization dynamics from static and mobile impurities. The superfluidity is formed in the rung-Mott phase of a bosonic ladder model producing spin-Meissner currents induced by a $\mathbb{U}(1)$ gauge field or a uniform magnetic field. Impurities are described through two-state systems which act as a two-peak random potential. An impurity sits either at the top or at the bottom of the ladder on each rung equally, producing a telegraph signal. The impurities-matter coupling gives rise to a classical Ising symmetry for static and mobile impurities associated to the inversion symmetry of the two legs of the ladder. From the decoupled rungs limit, we also identify a local $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge theory for mobile impurities. The properties of the system are studied from an effective quantum spin model including the possibility of four-body coupling in the limit of a strong interaction between bosons and impurities. Through analytical approaches and numerical exact diagonalization, we study the superfluid currents both in the weakly-coupled and strongly-coupled rungs limits for the bosons. In the weakly-coupled rungs situation, we find a smooth power-law localization whereas the strongly-coupled rungs limit produces a steep localization or insulating phase for various configurations of the two-peak random potential. In the strongly disordered situation, through entanglement and bipartite fluctuation measures, we also identify a many-body localization regime in time after a quench of the system when prepared in a N\' eel state.

A versatile ring trap for quantum gases

We report on the confinement of a Bose–Einstein condensate in an annular trap with widely tunable parameters. The trap relies on a combination of magnetic, optical and radio-frequency fields. The loading procedure is discussed. We present annular traps with radii adjusted between 20 and 150 μm. We demonstrate the preparation of persistent flows both with a rotating laser stirrer and with a global quadrupole deformation of the ring. Our setup is well adapted for the study of superfluid dynamics.

Roton instabilities in the superfluid outer core of neutron stars

We study the superfluid dynamics of the outer core of neutron stars by means of a generalized hydrodynamic model made of a neutronic superfluid and a protonic superconductor, coupled by both the dynamic entrainment and the Skyrme SLy4 nucleon-nucleon interactions. The resulting nonlinear equations of motion are probed in the search for dynamical instabilities triggered by the relative motion of the superfluids that could be of potential relevance to observational features of neutron stars. Through linear analysis, the origin and expected growth of the instabilities is explored for varying nuclear-matter density. Differently from previous findings, the dispersion of linear excitations in our model shows rotonic structures below the pair-breaking energy threshold, which lies at the origin of the dynamical instabilities and could eventually lead to emergent vorticity along with modulations of the superfluid density.

Hydrodynamic decay of decorated quantum vortex rings

The decay of quantum vortex rings in counterflow regimes, visualized in Helium II with the help of solid hydrogen particles trapped to their cores, has been a puzzling issue within the usual description of superfluid vortex dynamics, grounded on the hypothesis that a vortex filament is, effectively, an extended massless object subject to a canceling superposition of Magnus and mutual friction forces. We discuss, from a general energy-budget point of view, a phenomenological solution of this problem, which relies on viscous and quantum dissipation mechanisms, the later associated to the backreaction of vortex singular structures on the surrounding two-component fluid mixture.

What they don’t teach you at Harvard-Smithsonian In search of Navier-Stokes model of the Solar System

In this paper, we will discuss shortly a nonlinear cosmology model inspired by analogy between cosmology phenomena and low temperature physics, especially superfluid vortices dynamics. We described: (a) a nonlinear cosmology model based on Navier-Stokes turbulence equations, which then they are connected to superfluid turbulence, and (b) the superfluid turbulence can lead to superfluid quantized vortices, which can be viewed as large scale version of Bohr’s quantization rule, and (c) this superfluid quantized vortice interpretation of Bohr’s rule allow us to predict quantization of planetary orbits in solar system including new possible orbits beyond Pluto. This paper is intended as a retrospect of what happened after the publication of earlier papers, and also some related ideas we developed since that time. In the second section we also discuss a recent development in matter-creation hypothesis, by virtue of unmatter concept and its extension. It is our hope that the new proposed view will inspire younger physicists and cosmologists to develop more realistic nonlinear cosmology models. And although some of our predictions since 2004 have come to observed data, we also hope the ideas presented here can be further verified with observation data.

Superfluid Dynamics in Neutron Star Crusts: The Iordanskii Force and Chemical Gauge Covariance

We present a geometrical derivation of the relativistic dynamics of the superfluid inner crust of a neutron star. The resulting model is analogous to the Hall-Vinen-Bekarevich-Khalatnikov hydrodynamics for a single-component superfluid at finite temperature, but particular attention should be paid to the fact that some fraction of the neutrons is locked to the motion of the protons in nuclei. This gives rise to an ambiguity in the definition of the two currents (the normal and the superfluid one) on which the model is built, a problem that manifests itself as a chemical gauge freedom of the theory. To ensure chemical gauge covariance of the hydrodynamic model, the phenomenological equation of motion for a quantized vortex should contain an extra transverse force, that is the relativistic version of the Iordanskii force discussed in the context of superfluid Helium. Hence, we extend the mutual friction model of Langlois et al. (1998) to account for the possible presence of this Iordanskii-like force. Furthermore, we propose that a better understanding of the (still not completely settled) controversy around the presence of the Iordanskii force in superfluid Helium, as well as in neutron stars, may be achieved by considering that the different incompatible results present in the literature pertain to two, opposite, dynamical regimes of the fluid system.

Dynamical phase diagram of ultracold Josephson junctions

We provide a complete study of the phase diagram characterising the distinct dynamical regimes emerging in a three-dimensional Josephson junction in an ultracold quantum gas. Considering trapped ultracold superfluids separated into two reservoirs by a barrier of variable height and width, we analyse the population imbalance dynamics following a variable initial population mismatch. We demonstrate that as the chemical potential difference is increased, the system transitions from Josephson plasma oscillations to either a dissipative (in the limit of low and narrow barriers) or a self-trapped regime (for large and wider barriers), with a crossover between the dissipative and the self-trapping regimes which we explore and characterize for the first time. This work, which extends beyond the validity of the standard two-mode model, connects the role of the barrier width, vortex rings and associated acoustic emission with different regimes of the superfluid dynamics across the junction, establishing a framework for its experimental observation, which is found to be within current experimental reach.

Turbulent, pinned superfluids in neutron stars and pulsar glitch recoveries

ABSTRACT Pulsar glitches offer an insight into the dynamics of superfluids in the high-density interior of a neutron star. To model these phenomena, however, one needs to have an understanding of the dynamics of a turbulent array of superfluid vortices moving through a pinning lattice. In this paper, we develop a theoretical approach to describe vortex-mediated mutual friction in a pinned, turbulent and rotating superfluid. Our model is then applied to the study of the post-glitch rotational evolution in the Vela pulsar and in PSR J0537-6910. We show that in both cases a turbulent model fits the evolution of the spin frequency derivative better than a laminar one. We also predict that the second derivative of the frequency after a glitch should be correlated with the waiting time since the previous glitch, which we find to be consistent with observational data for these pulsars. The main conclusion of this paper is that in the post-glitch rotational evolution of these two pulsars we are most likely observing the response to the glitch of a pinned turbulent region of the star (possibly the crust) and not the laminar response of a regular straight vortex array.

Universal dynamics in the expansion of vortex clusters in a dissipative two-dimensional superfluid

A large ensemble of quantum vortices in a superfluid may itself be treated as a novel kind of fluid that exhibits anomalous hydrodynamics. Here we consider the dynamics of vortex clusters with thermal friction, and present an analytic solution that uncovers a new universality class in the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of dissipative superfluids. We find that the long-time dynamics of the vorticity distribution is an expanding Rankine vortex (i.e.~top-hat distribution) independent of initial conditions. This highlights a fundamentally different decay process to classical fluids, where the Rankine vortex is forbidden by viscous diffusion. Numerical simulations of large ensembles of point vortices confirm the universal expansion dynamics, and further reveal the emergence of a frustrated lattice structure marked by strong correlations. We present experimental results in a quasi-two-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensate that are in excellent agreement with the vortex fluid theory predictions, demonstrating that the signatures of vortex fluid theory can be observed with as few as $N\sim 11$ vortices. Our theoretical, numerical, and experimental results establish the validity of the vortex fluid theory for superfluid systems.