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arXiv:cond-mat/0509040 · Physical Review A

Two-fluid hydrodynamic modes in a trapped superfluid gas

Edward Taylor, Adam Griffin

Published Nov 23, 2005• 41 citations
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Abstract

In the collisional region at finite temperatures, the collective modes of superfluids are described by the Landau two-fluid hydrodynamic equations. This region can now be probed over the entire BCS--Bose-Einstein-condensate crossover in trapped Fermi superfluids with a Feshbach resonance, including the unitarity region. Building on the approach initiated by Zaremba, Nikuni, and Griffin in 1999 for trapped atomic Bose gases, we present a variational formulation of two-fluid hydrodynamic collective modes based on the work of Zilsel in 1950 developed for superfluid helium. Assuming a simple variational Ansatz for the superfluid and normal fluid velocities, the frequencies of the hydrodynamic modes are given by solutions of coupled algebraic equations, with constants only involving spatial integrals over various equilibrium thermodynamic derivatives. This variational approach is both simpler and more physical than a direct attempt to solve the Landau two-fluid differential equations. Our two-fluid results are shown to reduce to those of Pitaevskii and Stringari for a pure superfluid at $T=0$.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.72.053630

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In the collisional region at finite temperatures, the collective modes of superfluids are described by the Landau two-fluid hydrodynamic equations. This region can now be probed over the entire BCS--Bose-Einstein-condensate crossover in trapped Fermi superfluids with a Feshbach resonance, including the unitarity region. Building on the approach initiated by Zaremba, Nikuni, and Griffin in 1999 for trapped atomic Bose gases, we present a variational formulation of two-fluid hydrodynamic collective modes based on the work of Zilsel in 1950 developed for superfluid helium. Assuming a simple variational Ansatz for the superfluid and normal fluid velocities, the frequencies of the hydrodynamic modes are given by solutions of coupled algebraic equations, with constants only involving spatial integrals over various equilibrium thermodynamic derivatives. This variational approach is both simpler and more physical than a direct attempt to solve the Landau two-fluid differential equations. Our two-fluid results are shown to reduce to those of Pitaevskii and Stringari for a pure superfluid at T=0T=0T=0.
In the collisional region at finite temperatures, the collective modes of superfluids are described by the Landau two-fluid hydrodynamic equations reviewed in Chapter 14. In the case of trapped Bose gases, these are coupled differential equations with position-dependent coefficients associated with the local thermodynamic functions. Building on the approach initiated by Zaremba et al. (1999) for trapped atomic Bose gases, in this chapter we develop an alternative variational formulation of two-fluid hydrodynamics. This is based on the work of Zilsel (1950), originally developed to deal with superfluid He. Assuming a simple variational ansatz for the superfluid and normal fluid velocity fields, this approach reduces the problem of finding the hydrodynamic collective mode frequencies to solving coupled algebraic equations for a few variational parameters. These equations contain constants that involve spatial integrals over various equilibrium thermodynamic derivatives. Such a variational approach is both simpler and more physical than a direct attempt to solve the Landau two-fluid equations numerically. This chapter is mainly based on Taylor and Griffin (2005), Taylor (2008) and Zilsel (1950). In it, we discuss the normal modes of the non-dissipative Landau two-fluid equations for a trapped superfluid. In Section 16.3, we illustrate this formalism by deriving expressions for the frequencies of the dipole and breathing modes of a trapped Bose superfluid. In Chapters 17 and 18, we discuss an extended version of the two-fluid equations that includes hydrodynamic damping. The hydrodynamic damping of the collective modes is calculated in Chapter 19 using a generalized version of the variational approach developed in this chapter. Zilsel's variational formulation Since two-fluid hydrodynamics only describes a system in local equilibrium, all thermodynamic quantities are functions of position and time. Even in static equilibrium, in the presence of a trapping potential, most thermodynamic quantities will be position dependent.
Strongly interacting two-component Fermi gases have become a powerful tool for studying many-body physics. The interactions between the components can be varied widely, allowing the full crossover from BCS to BEC superfluids to be explored. In the strong interaction region at unitarity, the behaviour of the system becomes independent of microscopic details of the interaction. Hence, these Fermi gases can be used as a testing ground for microscopic theories of strongly-interacting Fermi matter. We propose that the out-of-phase two-fluid modes can be excited and measured in a two-photon Bragg scattering experiment, which measures the density response function. We investigate the structure of the two-fluid density response function at unitarity within our variational approach. The out-of-phase modes are found to have appreciable weight at intermediate temperatures in the superfluid phase and should be observable in Bragg scattering experiments. In this thesis, we study the Landau two-fluid hydrodynamic modes of a trapped Fermi gas superfluid, including the "out-of-phase" oscillations of the superfluid and normal fluid components. These modes are the analogue of second sound in superfluid 4He, and have so far not been observed in trapped Fermi gas superfluids. An important part of this thesis is the development of a new variational method of solving the two-fluid equations for gases confined in a harmonic trap. The solution of the resulting algebraic equations for the two-fluid mode frequencies requires detailed knowledge of the local thermodynamic quantities in a trap. In contrast to "classical" BCS and BEC superfluids such as 3He and 4He, both fermionic and bosonic thermal excitations contribute significantly to the thermodynamics close to unitarity. The fact that these excitations are coupled at finite temperatures means that one cannot write down simple expressions for thermodynamic quantities in terms of the spectrum of these excitations. Our calculations of thermodynamic quantities involve essentially ab initio calculations based on the microscopic theory developed by Nozieres and Schmitt-Rink, applied to a nonuniform trapped gas using a local density approximation.
In Chapter 17, we derived the Landau–Khalatnikov two-fluid hydrodynamics which describes the collision-dominated region of a trapped Bose condensate interacting with a thermal cloud. In this chapter, we use these equations to discuss the damping of the hydrodynamic collective modes in a trapped Bose gas at finite temperatures. We derive variational expressions based on these equations for both the frequency and the damping of collective modes. This extends the analysis in Chapter 16 in which a variational approach was developed to calculate the hydrodynamic two-fluid oscillation frequencies in the non-dissipative limit. A novel feature of our treatment is the introduction of frequency-dependent transport coefficients, which produce a natural cutoff eliminating the collisionless region in the low-density tail of the thermal cloud. Our expression for the damping in trapped superfluid Bose gases is a natural generalization of the approach used by Landau and Lifshitz (1959) for uniform classical fluids. This chapter is mainly based on Nikuni and Griffin (2004). In Chapters 15 and 17, we derived a closed set of two-fluid hydrodynamic equations for a trapped Bose-condensed gas starting from the simplified microscopic model describing the coupled dynamics of the condensate and noncondensate atoms given in Chapter 3. These hydrodynamic two-fluid equations include dissipative terms associated with the shear viscosity, the thermal conductivity and the four second viscosity coefficients. Explicit formulas for these transport coefficients were derived in Section 18.1. Our goal in this chapter is to find a general expression for the damping of the two-fluid modes in terms of these transport coefficients. We emphasize that the damping of hydrodynamic two-fluid oscillations is completely different in nature from the Landau and Beliaev damping of oscillations in the collisionless region which is treated in Chapters 12 and 13.
We present the results of a variational calculation of the frequencies of the low-lying Landau two-fluid hydrodynamic modes in a trapped Fermi superfluid gas at unitarity. Landau's two-fluid hydrodynamics is expected to be the correct theory of Fermi superfluids at finite temperatures close to unitarity, where strong interactions give rise to collisional hydrodynamics. Two-fluid hydrodynamics predicts the existence of in-phase modes in which the superfluid and normal fluid components oscillate together, as well as out-of-phase modes where the two components move against each other. We prove that, at unitarity, the dipole and breathing in-phase modes are locally isentropic. Their frequencies are independent of temperature and are the same above and below the superfluid transition, a feature due as much to the harmonic trapping potential as to the thermodynamic properties at unitarity. The out-of-phase modes, in contrast, are strongly dependent on temperature and hence can be used to test the thermodynamic properties and superfluid density of a Fermi gas at unitarity. We give numerical results for the frequencies of these modes as function of temperature in an isotropic trap at unitarity.
Recently it was shown that the Landau-Khalatnikov two-fluid hydrodynamics describes the collision-dominated region of a trapped Bose condensate interacting with a thermal cloud. We use these equations to discuss the low frequency hydrodynamic collective modes in a trapped Bose gas at finite temperatures. We derive variational expressions based on these equations for both the frequency and damping of collective modes. A new feature is our use of frequency-dependent transport coefficients, which produce a natural cutoff by eliminating the collisionless low-density tail of the thermal cloud. Above the superfluid transition, our expression for the damping in trapped inhomogeneous gases is analogous to the result first obtained by Landau and Lifshitz for uniform classical fluids. We also use the moment method to discuss the crossover from the collisionless to the hydrodynamic region. Recent data for the monopole-quadrupole mode in the hydrodynamic region of a trapped gas of metastable 4He{}^{4}\mathrm{He}4He is discussed. We also present calculations for the damping of the analogous m=0m=0m=0 monopole-quadrupole condensate mode in the superfluid phase.
In this chapter, we review the famous Landau theory of superfluidity at finite temperatures. This theory is based on coupled hydrodynamic equations for the superfluid and normal fluid components. Landau's two-fluid description is only valid when collisions among the thermal excitations making up the normal fluid are strong enough to produce local hydrodynamic equilibrium. These two-fluid equations were originally developed for liquid. He but are thought to be generic in form, describing the collision-dominated hydrodynamic region of all Bose superfluids. In this chapter, we will consider the solutions of the two-fluid equations mainly for a uniform superfluid. We discuss the existence of second sound (involving the out-of-phase motion of the superfluid and normal fluid components) as a characteristic feature of a Bose superfluid at finite temperatures. This chapter gives background material needed for Chapters 15–19. In Chapter 15, we will show that, in the appropriate limit, the Landau two-fluid equations can be derived from the ZNG coupled equations given in Chapter 3 for a trapped dilute Bose-condensed gas. In Chapters 17–19, we extend this discussion and derive the Landau–Khalatnikov two-fluid equations, which include hydrodynamic damping associated with various transport coefficients. Useful reviews of the two-fluid equations in the context of dilute spatially uniform Bose-condensed gases are given by Pethick and Smith (2008, Chapter 10) and Pitaevskii and Stringari (2003, Chapter 6). History of two-fluid equations The original discovery of superfluidity in liquid He was dramatically announced with the publication of the famous back-to-back papers of Kapitza (1938) in Moscow and Allen and Misener (1938) in Cambridge. These and subsequent experiments in the next few years showed that superfluid He could exhibit very bizarre hydrodynamic behaviour compared to classical liquids.