Depinning of a superfluid vortex line by Kelvin waves

Abstract

We measure the interaction of a single superfluid vortex with surface irregularities. While vortex pinning in superconductors usually becomes weaker at higher temperatures, we find the opposite behavior. The pinning steadily increases throughout our measurement range, from 0.15Tc to over 0.5Tc. We also find that moving the other end of the vortex decreases the pinning, so we propose Kelvin waves along the vortex as a depinning mechanism.

5 figures; substantial revision including 2 new figures

References in corpus (2)

• Superfluidity in relativistic neutron stars
• Stable Vortex Configurations in a Cylinder

Cited by in corpus (6)

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• Sixty Years of Quantized Circulation
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• Modelling turbulent flow of superfluid ${}^4$He past a rough solid wall in the $T=0$ limit