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Europhysics Letters (EPL)

On an analog of the Aharonov-Bohm effect in superfluid helium

Hananel Davidowitz, Victor Steinberg

Published May 1, 1997• 15 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We propose a hydrodynamic analog of the Aharonov-Bohm experiment in which second-sound waves are scattered on a quantized vortex in superfluid helium. The time lag that develops between the two sides of a second-sound plane wave impinging on a vortex from the side would be compared. Estimates for these experiments show that for reasonable experimental conditions the wavefront splitting can be readily measured at reduced temperatures of 10 −6 . The advantages of doing this experiment near the superfluid transition is discussed. This experiment would compliment the three other Aharonov-Bohm–type experiments which involve all four possible combinations of classical/quantum waves and classical/quantum vortices. This technique would provide a non-invasive means of investigating the dynamics of quantum vortex nucleation and their stability as well as addressing the problem of multiply quantized.

DOI
10.1209/epl/i1997-00241-3

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We propose a hydrodynamic analog of the Aharonov-Bohm experiment in which second-sound waves are scattered on a quantized vortex in superfluid helium. The time lag that develops between the two sides of a second-sound plane wave impinging on a vortex from the side would be compared. Estimates for these experiments show that for reasonable experimental conditions the wavefront splitting can be readily measured at reduced temperatures of 10 −6 . The advantages of doing this experiment near the superfluid transition is discussed. This experiment would compliment the three other Aharonov-Bohm–type experiments which involve all four possible combinations of classical/quantum waves and classical/quantum vortices. This technique would provide a non-invasive means of investigating the dynamics of quantum vortex nucleation and their stability as well as addressing the problem of multiply quantized.
Abstract Vorticity in two-dimensional superfluids is subject to intense research efforts due to its role in quantum turbulence, dissipation and the BKT phase transition. Interaction of sound and vortices is of broad importance in Bose–Einstein condensates and superfluid helium. However, both the modelling of the vortex flow field and of its interaction with sound are complicated hydrodynamic problems, with analytic solutions only available in special cases. In this work, we develop methods to compute both the vortex and sound flow fields in an arbitrary two-dimensional domain. Further, we analyse the dispersive interaction of vortices with sound modes in a two-dimensional superfluid and develop a model that quantifies this interaction for any vortex distribution on any two-dimensional bounded domain, possibly non-simply connected, exploiting analogies with fluid dynamics of an ideal gas and electrostatics. As an example application we use this technique to propose an experiment that should be able to unambiguously detect single circulation quanta in a helium thin film.
The Aharonov–Bohm effect was discovered as a quantum-mechanical effect for charged particles, but it has its counterpart in classical wave mechanics. The Aharonov–Bohm interference arises at the scattering of a sound wave by a vortex in classical and quantum hydrodynamics. This interference leads to a transverse force between quasiparticles and vortices in superfluids and superconductors. The Aharonov–Bohm effect was also generalized to neutral particles with magnetic or electric dipole momenta. The Aharonov–Bohm effect for charge particles and its modification for magnetic momenta (the Aharonov–Casher effect) have already been experimentally observed, and the efforts to detect the Aharonov–Bohm effect for electrically polarized neutral particles are on the way. A possible system for this detection is a Bose-condensate of excitons in a double quantum well. Observation of the Aharonov–Bohm effect in this system would provide direct evidence of Bose–Einstein condensation.
We investigate the deformation of wavefronts of sound waves in rotating Bose-Einstein condensates. In irrational fluid flows Berry et al. identified this kind of deformation as the hydrodynamic analogue of the Aharonov-Bohm effect. We study this effect in Bose-Einstein condensates and obtain the Aharonov-Bohm phase shift at all wavelengths. We show that this deformation of wave fronts is seen in both phase and density fluctuations. For wavelengths larger than the healing length, the phase fluctuations experience a phase shift of the order of 2π2π2π times the winding number. We also consider lattices of vortices. If the angular momentum of the vortices are aligned, the total phase shift is 2π2π2π times the number of vortices in the condensate. Because of this behaviour the hydrodynamic Aharonov-Bohm can be utilized as a probe for quantum vorticity, whose experimental realization could offers an alternative route to investigate quantum turbulence in the laboratory.
We address the collision of two superfluid 4He droplets at non-zero initial relative velocities and impact parameters within the framework of liquid 4He time-dependent density functional theory at zero temperature. Despite the small size of these droplets (1000 He atoms in the merged droplet) imposed by computational limitations, we have found that quantized vortices may be readily nucleated for reasonable collision parameters. At variance with head-on collisions, where only vortex rings are produced, collisions with a non-zero impact parameter produce linear vortices that are nucleated at indentations appearing on the surface of the deformed merged droplet. Whereas for equal-size droplets, vortices are produced in pairs, an odd number of vortices can appear when the colliding droplet sizes are different. In all cases, vortices coexist with surface capillary waves. The possibility for collisions to be at the origin of vortex nucleation in experiments involving very large droplets is discussed. An additional surprising result is the observation of the drops coalescence even for grazing and distal collisions at relative velocities as high as 80 and 40 m/s, respectively, induced by the long-range van der Waals attraction between the droplets.
Kelvin waves---helical waves on quantized vortex lines---are the normal modes of vortices in a superfluid. At zero temperature, the only dissipative channel of vortex dynamics is phonon emission. Starting with the hydrodynamic action, we derive the Hamiltonian of vortex-phonon interaction, thereby reducing the problem of the interaction of Kelvin waves with sound to inelastic elementary excitation scattering. On the basis of this formalism, we calculate the rate of sound radiation by superfluid turbulence at zero temperature and estimate the value of short-wavelength cutoff of the turbulence spectrum.