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arXiv:2309.08016 · Physical Review A

Curved vortex surfaces in four-dimensional superfluids. II. Equal-frequency double rotations

Ben McCanna, Hannah M. Price

Published Jul 25, 2024• 3 citations
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Abstract

As is well known, two-dimensional and three-dimensional superfluids under rotation can support topological excitations such as quantized point vortices and line vortices, respectively. Recently, we have studied how, in a hypothetical four-dimensional (4D) superfluid, such excitations can be generalized to vortex planes and surfaces. In this paper we continue our analysis of skewed and curved vortex surfaces based on the 4D Gross-Pitaevskii equation and show that certain types of such states can be stabilized by equal-frequency double rotations for suitable parameters. This work extends the rich phenomenology of vortex surfaces in four dimensions and raises interesting questions about vortex reconnections and the competition between various vortex structures which have no direct analog in lower dimensions. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

DOI
10.1103/physreva.110.013326

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The study of superfluid quantum vortices has long been an important area of research, with previous work naturally focusing on two-dimensional and three-dimensional systems, where rotation stabilizes point vortices and line vortices respectively. Interestingly, this physics generalizes for a hypothetical four-dimensional (4D) superfluid to include vortex planes, which can have a much richer phenomenology. In this paper we study the possibility of skewed and curved vortex planes, which have no direct analog in lower dimensions. By analytically and numerically studying the 4D Gross-Pitaevskii equation, we show that such vortex surfaces can be stabilized and favored by double rotation with unequal rotation frequencies. Our work raises open questions for further research into the physics of these vortex surfaces and suggests interesting future extensions to tilted vortex surfaces under equal-frequency double rotation and to more realistic 4D models. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Quantum vortices in superfluids have been an important research area for many decades. Naturally, research on this topic has focused on two and three-dimensional superfluids, in which vortex cores form points and lines, respectively. Very recently, however, there has been growing interest in the quantum simulation of systems with four spatial dimensions; this raises the question of how vortices would behave in a higher-dimensional superfluid. In this paper, we begin to establish the phenomenology of vortices in 4D superfluids under rotation, where the vortex core can form a plane. In 4D, the most generic type of rotation is a "double rotation" with two angles (or frequencies). We show, by solving the Gross-Pitaesvkii equation, that the simplest case of equal-frequency double rotation can stabilise a pair of vortex planes intersecting at a point. This opens up a wide number of future research topics, including unequal-frequency double rotations; the stability and reconnection dynamics of intersecting vortex surfaces; and the possibility of closed vortex surfaces.
Interactions and reconnections of vortices are fundamental in many areas of physics, including classical and quantum fluids where they are central to understanding phenomena such as turbulence. In three-dimensional (3D) superfluids, quantum vortices are one-dimensional filaments that can intersect, reconnect, and recoil with irreversible dynamics described by near-universal scaling laws. We explore quantum-vortex reconnections in a four-dimensional superfluid, where a vortex is a two-dimensional surface. Using real-time numerical simulations, we find much richer behavior than in 3D, including stable intersecting vortex surfaces which do not reconnect, and unusual vortex reconnections which occur without significant energy dissipation, which may indicate quasireversible dynamics. Our work raises many interesting questions about vortex physics in extradimensional systems and may be further extended to look at vortex dynamics and turbulence in higher-dimensional spaces.
We develop a neutral vortex fluid theory on closed surfaces with zero genus. The theory describes collective dynamics of many well-separated quantum vortices in a superfluid confined on a closed surface. Comparing to the case on a plane, the covariant vortex fluid equation on a curved surface contains an additional term proportional to Gaussian curvature multiplying the circulation quantum. This term describes the coupling between topological defects and curvature in the macroscopic level. For a sphere, the simplest nontrivial stationary vortex flow is obtained analytically and this flow is analogous to the celebrated zonal Rossby-Haurwitz wave in classical fluids on a nonrotating sphere. For this flow the difference between the coarse-grained vortex velocity field and the fluid velocity field generated by vortices is solely driven by curvature and vanishes in the corresponding vortex flow on a plane when the radius of the sphere goes to infinity. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
We consider a rotating Bose-Einstein condensate in a harmonic trap and investigate numerically the behavior of the wave function which solves the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. Following recent experiments [P. Rosenbuch, V. Bretin, and J. Dalibard, Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 200403 (2002)], we study in detail the line of a single quantized vortex, which has a U or S shape. We find that a single vortex can lie only in the $x\ensuremath{-}z$ or $y\ensuremath{-}z$ plane. S-type vortices exist for all values of the angular velocity $\ensuremath{\Omega}$ while U vortices exist for $\ensuremath{\Omega}$ sufficiently large. We compute the energy of the various configurations with several vortices and study the three-dimensional structure of vortices.
The study of quantum vortices provides critical insights into non-equilibrium dynamics across diverse physical systems. While previous research has focused on point-like vortices in two dimensions and line-like vortices in three dimensions, quantum vortices in four spatial dimensions are expected to take the form of extended vortex surfaces, thereby fundamentally enriching dynamics. Here, we conduct a comprehensive numerical study of 4D quantum vortices and turbulence. Using a special visualization method, we discovered the decay of topological numbers that does not exist in low dimensions, as well as the high-dimensional counterpart of the vortex reconnection process. We further explore quench dynamics across phase transitions in four dimensions and verify the applicability of the higher-dimensional Kibble-Zurek mechanism. Our simulations provide numerical evidence of 4D quantum turbulence, characterized by universal power-law behavior. These findings reveal universal principles governing topological defects in higher dimensions, offering insights for future experimental realizations using synthetic dimensions.