Superfluid drain vortex

Abstract

Drain vortices are among the most common vortices observed in everyday life, yet their physics is complex due to the competition of vorticity's transport and diffusion, and the presence of viscous layers and a free surface. Recently, it has become possible to study experimentally drain vortices in superfluid liquid helium, a fluid in which the physics is simplified by the absence of viscosity and the quantisation of the circulation. Using the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, we make a simple model of the problem which captures the essential physics ingredients, showing that the superfluid drain vortex consists of a bundle of vortex lines which twist, thus strengthening the axial flow into the drain.

arXiv comment8 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (9)

• A primer on quantum fluids
• Rotating Superfluid Turbulence
• Twisted vortex state
• Rotating quantum turbulence in the unitary Fermi gas
• Coherent laminar and turbulent motion of toroidal vortex bundles
• Turbulent, pinned superfluids in neutron stars and pulsar glitch recoveries
• Bathtub vortex in superfluid ${}^4$He
• Force Free Configurations of Vortices in High Temperature Superconductors near H_{c2}
• Rotating quantum turbulence in superfluid 4He in the T=0 limit