There has been a recent tendency to apply Schroedinger's wave equation to macroscopic domains, from Bose-Einstein condensates in neutron stars to planetary orbits. In these applications a hydrodynamical interpretation, involving vortices in some 'fluid' medium is often given. The vortex picture appears surprising in light of more traditional interpretations of Schroedinger's equation, and indeed often appears to rely on ad hoc analogies. The purpose of this letter is to examine the vortex hypothesis in light of a simple, transparent mathematical framework. We find that Schroedinger's equation implies waves can be vortices also for a class of wave functions. Vortices occur in pairs that perform a sort of quantum computation by collapsing into either 0 or 1. Vortices collapsing to 0 ('0-vortices') are longer-lived, and their ratio to 1-vortices is discussed.
There has been a recent tendency to apply Schroedinger's wave equation to macroscopic domains, from Bose-Einstein condensates in neutron stars to planetary orbits. In these applications a hydrodynamical interpretation, involving vortices in some 'fluid' medium is often given. The vortex picture appears surprising in light of more traditional interpretations of Schroedinger's equation, and indeed often appears to rely on ad hoc analogies. The purpose of this letter is to examine the vortex hypothesis in light of a simple, transparent mathematical framework. We find that Schroedinger's equation implies waves can be vortices also for a class of wave functions. Vortices occur in pairs that perform a sort of quantum computation by collapsing into either 0 or 1. Vortices collapsing to 0 ('0-vortices') are longer-lived, and their ratio to 1-vortices is discussed.
In quantum theory, vortex lines arise in the hydrodynamic interpretation of the wave equation. In this interpretation, which is originally due to Madelung, the flow of the probability density for a single particle is described in terms of the hydrodynamic variables. For the sake of simplicity, the standard time-dependent Schrödinger equation, and the related vortex lines embedded in the probability fluid of the quantum particle, are considered here. A vortex line in this case is simply the curve defined by equating the wave function to zero. The linearity of the Schrödinger equation enables us to obtain a large family of exact time-dependent analytic solutions for the wave functions with vortex lines. Moreover, the method is general enough to allow for various initial configurations of the vortex lines. Although the equation of motion of the quantum mechanical probability fluid is different in its literal form from the equations describing the real physical fluid, we believe that the evolution of the vorticity in the quantum and in the real fluid share the same qualitative features that can be described in terms of the topology of the vortex lines configurations. The general phenomena such as the switch-over, creation and annihilation of vortices can be observed in the quantum mechanical fluid. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
At low temperature Quantum Physics can manifest itself at the macroscopic scale in many spectacular ways. Some of its most remarkable features occur when a fluid is stirred. Indeed, as a consequence of the existence of a macroscopic wave-function describing the system, a quantum fluid cannot sustain rigid body rotation by contrast with a classical fluid. Rather, the stirring generates quantized vortices. The recent observation of novel quantum fluids formed by ultra-cold atomic gases allows us to revisit the properties of vortex systems, and to address pending questions of condensed matter physics.
The aim of this paper is to derive the equations of motion of quantum vortices in a weakly non-ideal Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) at finite temperatures and in the presence of macroscopic superfluid and normal velocities. The motivation for this work is that the dynamics of quantum vortices in superfluid helium has been studied at the phenomenological level, and a number of issues require clarification, which can be addressed by studying the corresponding problem in BEC. In BEC, quantum vortices are located at points where the macroscopic wave function (MWF) ψ(r,T), which describes the BEC dynamics, vanishes ψ(r,T)=0. The intersection of the surfaces Reψ(r,T)=0 and Imψ(r,T)=0 forms a one-dimensional line, which is just the quantum vortex line. During the evolution of the MWF, the position of the zero surfaces changes, that is, the vortex lines move. Conversely, the motion of these vortex filaments determines the evolution of the MWF. Thus, there is a mutual correspondence, and the quantity ψ(r,T) can be considered as a functional of the entire vortex configuration, i.e., {s(ξ,t)}. This viewpoint allows us to derive the equations of motion for vortices from the Gross–Pitaevskii equation (GPE), which describes the dynamics of MWF. The key finding is the confirmation that the equation derived from the fundamental quantum description (the GPE) for a BEC has the same mathematical structure as the equation derived from macroscopic, phenomenological reasoning for superfluid helium.
The time-dependent Schrödinger equation describes dynamical processes of one-electron species in terms of complex wave functions. The functions are inherently complex; therefore zeros occur only when both the real and imaginary parts of the wave functions vanish. If this happens at isolated points rather than on nodal surfaces one can show that the zeros must correspond to vortices. An imaging theorem is given which shows how such vortices can be seen experimentally. Since the theorem requires time propagation from microscopic to macroscopic scales, a method is developed that does just the same. Examples of vortices that emerge in dynamical processes are given. The vortices that we find are linked to the hydrodynamic interpretation of Schrödinger's time-dependent equation.
The dynamics of vortex solitons is studied in a BEC superfluid. A quantum lattice-gas algorithm (measurementbased quantum computation) is employed to examine the dynamical behavior vortex soliton solutions of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation (ø4 interaction nonlinear Schroedinger equation). Quantum turbulence is studied in large grid numerical simulations: Kolmogorov spectrum associated with a Richardson energy cascade occurs on large flow scales. At intermediate scales, a new k-6 power law emerges, due to vortex filamentary reconnections associated with Kelvin wave instabilities (vortex twisting) coupling to sound modes and the exchange of intermediate vortex rings. Finally, at very small spatial scales a k-3power law emerges, characterizing fluid dynamics occurring within the scale size of the vortex cores themselves. Poincaré recurrence is studied: in the free non-interacting system, a fast Poincaré recurrence occurs for regular arrays of line vortices. The recurrence period is used to demarcate dynamics driving a nonlinear quantum fluid towards turbulence, since fast recurrence is an approximate symmetry of the nonlinear quantum fluid at early times. This class of quantum algorithms is useful for studying BEC superfluid dynamics and, without modification, should allow for higher resolution simulations (with many components) on future quantum computers.
Lord Kelvin proposed that atoms form hydrodynamic vortex knots. However, they typically untie through reconnections, i. e., local cut-and-slice events, unlike stable vortex unknots such as smoke rings. The same holds in superfluids--quantum fluids with zero viscosity--where vortices have quantized circulation, making them topologically stable. For over 150 years, hydrodynamically stable vortex knots have been sought both experimentally and theoretically. Here, we present the first demonstration of hydrodynamically stable vortex knots and links in experimentally realizable Bose-Einstein condensates of ultracold atomic gases and confirm it through dynamic simulations. Our method creates stable knotted vortex structures in systems where reconnections are prohibited, with potential relevance to neutron star interiors. Additionally, we anticipate our mathematical framework could have applications in quantum computation, quantum turbulence, and DNA dynamics, particularly where reconnections are restricted.