Low Temperature Physics
On the possibility of vortex creation in superfluid systems by crossed homogeneous magnetic and inhomogeneous electric fields
S. I. Shevchenko
Abstract
In the article by Shevchenko and A. S. Rukin, Pis'ma v Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 90, 46 (2009), it has been found that quantized vortices in superfluid systems acquire a charge in a magnetic field. A compensating charge with the opposite sign on a surface of the system can be at a macroscopic distance apart from the charge of the vortex. It is shown that as a result the total energy of the vortex charge and the compensating charge can be negative in the presence of an inhomogeneous electric field, normal to a homogeneous magnetic field. The conditions under which this leads to the spontaneous emergence of quantized vortices in the system are found. A possibility to observe the effect in He II, Bose gases of alkali metals and systems with spatially indirect excitons is discussed.