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arXiv:1708.06154 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Vortex nucleation limited mobility of free electron bubbles in the Gross-Pitaevskii model of a superfluid

Alberto Villois, Hayder Salman

Published Mar 13, 2018• 15 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study the motion of an electron bubble in the zero-temperature limit where neither phonons nor rotons provide a significant contribution to the drag exerted on an ion moving within the superfluid. By using the Gross-Clark model, in which a Gross-Pitaevskii equation for the superfluid wave function is coupled to a Schr\"odinger equation for the electron wave function, we study how vortex nucleation affects the measured drift velocity of the ion. We use parameters that give realistic values of the ratio of the radius of the bubble with respect to the healing length in superfluid $^{4}\mathrm{He}$ at a pressure of one bar. By performing fully three-dimensional spatiotemporal simulations of the superfluid coupled to an electron, that is modeled within an adiabatic approximation and moving under the influence of an applied electric field, we are able to recover the key dynamics of the ion-vortex interactions that arise and the subsequent ion-vortex complexes that can form. Using the numerically computed drift velocity of the ion as a function of the applied electric field, we determine the vortex nucleation limited mobility of the ion to recover values in good agreement with measured data.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.97.094507

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Nucleation of vortex rings accompanies the collapse of ultrasound bubbles in superfluids. Using the Gross-Pitaevskii equation for a uniform condensate we elucidate the various stages of the collapse of a stationary spherically symmetric bubble and establish conditions necessary for vortex nucleation. The minimum radius of the stationary bubble, whose collapse leads to vortex nucleation, was found to be 28+/-1 healing lengths. The time after which the nucleation becomes possible is determined as a function of the bubble's radius. We show that vortex nucleation takes place in moving bubbles of even smaller radius if the motion makes them sufficiently oblate.
Nucleation of vortex rings accompanies the collapse of ultrasound bubbles in superfluids. Using the Gross-Pitaevskii equation for a uniform condensate we elucidate the various stages of the collapse of a stationary spherically symmetric bubble and establish conditions necessary for vortex nucleation. The minimum radius of the stationary bubble, whose collapse leads to vortex nucleation, was found to be 28+/-1 healing lengths. The time after which the nucleation becomes possible is determined as a function of the bubble's radius. We show that vortex nucleation takes place in moving bubbles of even smaller radius if the motion makes them sufficiently oblate.
The Bose condensate model is used to elucidate the motion of the electron bubble in superfluids. An asymptotic expansion is developed for steady subcritical flow. Numerical integration of the coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations, that describe the evolution of the wavefunctions of the Bose condensate and the impurity, is used to study the nucleation and capture of vortex rings. Because an electron bubble is made oblate by its motion relative to the condensate, the critical velocity for the vortex nucleation is reduced by about 20%, in agreement with experiments.
We carry out extensive direct numerical simulations to investigate the interaction of active particles and fields in the two-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii superfluid, in both simple and turbulent flows. The particles are active in the sense that they affect the superfluid even as they are affected by it. We tune the mass of the particles, which is an important control parameter. At the one-particle level, we show how light, neutral, and heavy particles move in the superfluid, when a constant external force acts on them; in particular, beyond a critical velocity, at which a vortex-antivortex pair is emitted, particle motion can be periodic or chaotic. We demonstrate that the interaction of a particle with vortices leads to dynamics that depends sensitively on the particle characteristics. We also demonstrate that assemblies of particles and vortices can have rich, and often turbulent, spatiotemporal evolution. In particular, we consider the dynamics of the following illustrative initial configurations: (a) one particle placed in front of a translating vortex-antivortex pair; (b) two particles placed in front of a translating vortex-antivortex pair; (c) a single particle moving in the presence of counter-rotating vortex clusters; (d) four particles in the presence of counter-rotating vortex clusters. We compare our work with earlier studies and examine its implications for recent experimental studies in superfluid helium and Bose-Einstein condensates.
We characterize the mechanisms of vortex pinning in a superfluid thin film described by the two-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equation. We consider a vortex "scattering experiment" whereby a single vortex in a superfluid flow interacts with a circular, uniform pinning potential. By an analogy with linear dielectrics, we develop an analytical hydrodynamic approximation that predicts vortex trajectories, the vortex fixed point and the unpinning velocity. We then solve the Gross-Pitaevskii equation to validate this model, and build a phase portrait of vortex pinning. We identify two different dynamical pinning mechanisms marked by distinctive phonon emission signatures: one enabled by acoustic radiation and another mediated by vortex dipoles nucleated within the pin. Relative to obstacle size, we find that pinning potentials on the order of the healing length are more effective for vortex capture. Our results could be useful in mitigating the negative effects of drag due to vortices in superfluid channels, in analogy to maximizing supercurrents in type-II superconductors.
The aim of this paper is to derive the equations of motion of quantum vortices in a weakly non-ideal Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) at finite temperatures and in the presence of macroscopic superfluid and normal velocities. The motivation for this work is that the dynamics of quantum vortices in superfluid helium has been studied at the phenomenological level, and a number of issues require clarification, which can be addressed by studying the corresponding problem in BEC. In BEC, quantum vortices are located at points where the macroscopic wave function (MWF) ψ(r,T), which describes the BEC dynamics, vanishes ψ(r,T)=0. The intersection of the surfaces Reψ(r,T)=0 and Imψ(r,T)=0 forms a one-dimensional line, which is just the quantum vortex line. During the evolution of the MWF, the position of the zero surfaces changes, that is, the vortex lines move. Conversely, the motion of these vortex filaments determines the evolution of the MWF. Thus, there is a mutual correspondence, and the quantity ψ(r,T) can be considered as a functional of the entire vortex configuration, i.e., {s(ξ,t)}. This viewpoint allows us to derive the equations of motion for vortices from the Gross–Pitaevskii equation (GPE), which describes the dynamics of MWF. The key finding is the confirmation that the equation derived from the fundamental quantum description (the GPE) for a BEC has the same mathematical structure as the equation derived from macroscopic, phenomenological reasoning for superfluid helium.