We present a quantitative analytical framework for calculating two-point velocity correlations in compressible quantum fluids, focusing on two key classes of superfluid excitations: vortices and rarefaction pulses. We employ two complementary approaches. First, we introduce a new Ansatz for vortex cores in planar quantum fluids that enhances analytic integrability. This Ansatz yields closed-form expressions for power spectra and velocity correlations for general vortex distributions. Using it, we identify distinct signatures of short- and long-range velocity correlations corresponding to vortex dipoles and vortex pairs, respectively. Second, we analyze the fast rarefaction pulse regime of the Jones-Roberts soliton. By applying the asymptotic high-velocity wave function, we derive analytic expressions for the velocity power spectrum and correlation function, capturing the soliton characteristic length scale. We validate our analytical results for the homogeneous system against numerical treatment of a large trapped system, finding close quantitative agreement. Our findings provide the first analytic treatment of velocity correlations for Jones-Roberts solitons in quantum fluids of light [M. Baker-Rasooli et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 233401 (2025)] and establish a foundation for characterizing vortices and solitons in compressible quantum fluids.
We present a quantitative analytical framework for calculating two-point velocity correlations in compressible quantum fluids, focusing on two key classes of superfluid excitations: vortices and rarefaction pulses. We employ two complementary approaches. First, we introduce a new Ansatz for vortex cores in planar quantum fluids that enhances analytic integrability. This Ansatz yields closed-form expressions for power spectra and velocity correlations for general vortex distributions. Using it, we identify distinct signatures of short- and long-range velocity correlations corresponding to vortex dipoles and vortex pairs, respectively. Second, we analyze the fast rarefaction pulse regime of the Jones-Roberts soliton. By applying the asymptotic high-velocity wave function, we derive analytic expressions for the velocity power spectrum and correlation function, capturing the soliton characteristic length scale. We validate our analytical results for the homogeneous system against numerical treatment of a large trapped system, finding close quantitative agreement. Our findings provide the first analytic treatment of velocity correlations for Jones-Roberts solitons in quantum fluids of light [M. Baker-Rasooli et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 233401 (2025)] and establish a foundation for characterizing vortices and solitons in compressible quantum fluids.
We investigate the formation and dynamics of Jones-Roberts solitons in a smoothly inhomogeneous quantum fluid. To do so, we create a superfluid of light using a paraxial, near-resonant laser beam propagating through a hot rubidium vapor. We excite a bounded vortex-antivortex dipole in the superfluid and observe its transition to a rarefaction pulse and back, in agreement with the seminal predictions of Jones and Roberts. Employing an analogy with ray optics, we calculate the trajectory of the interacting vortices, deriving an effective refractive index from the inhomogeneous fluid density. Finally, we examine analytically and experimentally the superfluid velocity correlations, observing a transfer of coherence from incompressible to compressible velocity of the quantum fluid, a direct signature of the dynamical conversion between vortices and the rarefaction pulse.
Homogeneous planar superfluids exhibit a range of low-energy excitations that also appear in highly excited states like superfluid turbulence. In dilute gas Bose-Einstein condensates, the Jones-Roberts soliton family includes vortex dipoles and rarefaction pulses in the low- and high-velocity regimes, respectively. These excitations carry both energy and linear momentum, making their decay characteristics crucial for understanding superfluid dynamics. In this work, we develop the theory of planar soliton decay due to thermal effects, as described by the stochastic projected Gross--Pitaevskii theory of reservoir interactions. We analyze two distinct damping terms involving transfer between the condensate and the noncondensate reservoir: particle transfer that also involves energy and usually drives condensate growth, and number-conserving energy transfer. We provide analytical treatments for both the low- and high-velocity regimes and identify conditions under which either mechanism dominates. Our findings indicate that energy damping prevails at high phase-space density. These theoretical results are supported by numerical studies covering the entire velocity range from vortex dipole to rarefaction pulse. We use interaction energy to characterize rarefaction pulses, analogous to the distance between vortices in vortex dipoles, offering an experimentally accessible test for finite-temperature theory in Bose-Einstein condensates.
Turbulent fluid dynamics typically involves excitations on many different length scales. Classical incompressible fluids can be cleanly represented in Fourier space enabling spectral analysis of energy cascades and other turbulence phenomena. In quantum fluids, additional phase information and singular behavior near vortex cores thwarts the direct extension of standard spectral techniques. We develop a formal and numerical spectral analysis for U(1) symmetry-breaking quantum fluids suitable for analyzing turbulent flows, with specific application to the Gross--Pitaevskii fluid. Our analysis builds naturally on the canonical approach to spectral analysis of velocity fields in compressible quantum fluids and establishes a clear correspondence between energy spectral densities, power spectral densities, and autocorrelation functions, applicable to energy residing in velocity, quantum pressure, interaction, and potential energy of the fluid. Our formulation includes all quantum phase information and also enables arbitrary resolution spectral analysis, a valuable feature for numerical analysis. A central vortex in a trapped planar Bose--Einstein condensate provides an analytically tractable example with spectral features of interest in both the infrared and ultraviolet regimes. Sampled distributions modeling the dipole gas, plasma, and clustered regimes exhibit velocity correlation length increasing with vortex energy, consistent with known qualitative behavior across the vortex clustering transition. The spectral analysis of compressible quantum fluids presented here offers a rigorous tool for analyzing quantum features of superfluid turbulence in atomic or polariton condensates.
We review turbulence in ultracold quantum gases, using the scalar contact-interaction Bose-Einstein condensate as the reference system for quantized circulation, compressibility, vortices, sound, and cascades. We focus on the quantitative diagnostics that connect helium and classical phenomenology to microscopic wave-function dynamics: incompressible and compressible kinetic-energy spectra, wave-occupation spectra, spectral fluxes, vortex-resolved correlations, and velocity statistics. These diagnostics distinguish equilibrium vortex organization, decaying turbulent relaxation, forced cascade dynamics, and weak-wave turbulence, and show why power laws alone are insufficient evidence for a cascade. We survey experiments on two-dimensional Onsager clustering, three-dimensional vortex-line turbulence, box-trap wave cascades, engineered dissipation, and turbulent equations of state. We close by briefly placing the contact-interaction scalar superfluid system in a broader landscape of nonlocal, multicomponent, fermionic, and driven-dissipative quantum fluids, where turbulence concepts can be tested for universality.
We disclose a class of stable nonlinear traveling waves moving at specific constant velocities within symmetric two-dimensional quantum droplets. We present a comprehensive analysis of these traveling bubbles and identify three qualitatively distinct regions within the one-parameter family of solutions, classified by velocity: (i) well-separated phase singularities at low velocity, (ii) singularities within the same density dip at intermediate velocity, and (iii) rarefaction pulses without singularities at higher (subsonic) velocities. Then, we generalize the discussion to unstable cases, incorporating higher-order vortex-antivortex pairs and arrays of vortices that move cohesively with a common velocity within the fluid. In all cases, we provide analytic approximations that aid the understanding of the results in different regimes.
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 under 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 universal in the form of 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 of expanding vortex clusters 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∼11 vortices. Our theoretical, numerical, and experimental results establish the validity of the vortex fluid theory for superfluid systems.