No Arabic abstract
We present an accurate and robust numerical method to track quantized vortex lines in a superfluid described by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. By utilizing the pseudo-vorticity field of the associated complex scalar order parameter of the superfluid, we are able to track the topological defects of the superfluid and reconstruct the vortex lines which correspond to zeros of the field. Throughout, we assume our field is periodic to allow us to make extensive use of the Fourier representation of the field and its derivatives in order to retain spectral accuracy. We present several case studies to test the precision of the method which include the evaluation of the curvature and torsion of a torus vortex knot, and the measurement of the Kelvin wave spectrum of a vortex line and a vortex ring. The method we present makes no a-priori assumptions on the geometry of the vortices and is therefore applicable to a wide range of systems such as a superfluid in a turbulent state that is characterised by many vortex rings coexisting with sound waves. This allows us to track the positions of the vortex filaments in a dense turbulent vortex tangle and extract statistical information about the distribution of the size of the vortex rings and the inter-vortex separations. In principle, the method can be extended to track similar topological defects arising in other physical systems.
The development and decay of a turbulent vortex tangle driven by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation is studied. Using a recently-developed accurate and robust tracking algorithm, all quantised vortices are extracted from the fields. The Vinens decay law for the total vortex length with a coefficient that is in quantitative agreement with the values measured in Helium II is observed. The topology of the tangle is then studied showing that linked rings may appear during the decay. The tracking also allows for determining the statistics of small-scales quantities of vortex lines, exhibiting large fluctuations of curvature and torsion. Finally, the temporal evolution of the Kelvin wave spectrum is obtained providing evidence of the development of a weak-wave turbulence cascade.
By solving numerically the governing Gross-Pitaevskii equation, we study the dynamics of Kelvin waves on a superfluid vortex. After determining the dispersion relation, we monitor the turbulent decay of Kelvin waves with energy initially concentrated at large length scales. At intermediate length scales, we find that the decay is consistent with scaling predictions of theoretical models. Finally we report the unexpected presence of large-length scale phonons in the system.
In this paper, we consider the dynamical evolution of dark vortex states in the two-dimensional defocusing discrete nonlinear Schroedinger model, a model of interest both to atomic physics and to nonlinear optics. We find that in a way reminiscent of their 1d analogs, i.e., of discrete dark solitons, the discrete defocusing vortices become unstable past a critical coupling strength and, in the infinite lattice, they apparently remain unstable up to the continuum limit where they are restabilized. In any infinite lattice, stabilization windows of the structures may be observed. Systematic tools are offered for the continuation of the states both from the continuum and, especially, from the anti-continuum limit. Although the results are mainly geared towards the uniform case, we also consider the effect of harmonic trapping potentials.
We examine on the static and dynamical properties of quantum knots in a Bose-Einstein condensate. In particular, we consider the Gross-Pitaevskii model and revise a technique to construct ab initio the condensate wave-function of a generic torus knot. After analysing its excitation energy, we study its dynamics relating the topological parameter to its translational velocity and characteristic size. We also investigate the breaking mechanisms of non shape-preserving torus knots confirming an evidence of universal decaying behaviour previously observed.
We study numerically the formation of a vortex lattice inside a rotating bucket containing superfluid helium, paying attention to an important feature which is practically unavoidable in all experiments: the microscopic roughness of the buckets surface. We model this using the Gross-Pitaevskii for a weakly-interacting Bose gas, a model which is idealised when applied to superfluid helium but captures the key physics of the vortex dynamics which we are interested in. We find that the vortex lattice arises from the interaction and reconnections of nucleated U-shaped vortex lines, which merge and align along the axis of rotation. We quantify the effects which the surface roughness and remanent vortex lines play in this process.