We perform fully coupled two-dimensional numerical simulations of plane channel helium II counterflows with vortex-line density typical of experiments. The main features of our approach are the inclusion of the back reaction of the superfluid vortices on the normal fluid and the presence of solid boundaries. Despite the reduced dimensionality, our model is realistic enough to reproduce vortex density distributions across the channel recently calculated in three dimensions. We focus on the coarse-grained superfluid and normal fluid velocity profiles, recovering the normal fluid profile recently observed employing a technique based on laser-induced fluorescence of metastable helium molecules.
25 May 2017 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
In a pulsar, there are gaps and difficulties in our knowledge of glitches, mainly because of the absence of information about the physics of the matter of the star. This has motivated several authors to suggest dynamical models that interpret most of the astronomical data. Many predictions are based on the assumption that the inner part is analogous to the structure of matter of superfluids. Here, we illustrate a new mathematical model, partially inspired by the dynamics of superfluid helium. We obtain two evolution equations for the angular velocities (of the crust and of superfluid), which are supported by another evolution equation for the average vortex line length per unit volume. This third equation is more delicate from an analytical perspective and is probably at the origin of glitches. We identify two stationary solutions, corresponding to the straight vortex regime and the turbulent regime.
Motivated by the experimental development of quasihomogeneous Bose-Einstein condensates confined in boxlike traps, we study numerically the dynamics of dark solitons in such traps at zero temperature. We consider the cases where the side walls of the box potential rise either as a power law or a Gaussian. While the soliton propagates through the homogeneous interior of the box without dissipation, it typically dissipates energy during a reflection from a wall through the emission of sound waves, causing a slight increase in the soliton's speed. We characterize this energy loss as a function of the wall parameters. Moreover, over multiple oscillations and reflections in the boxlike trap, the energy loss and speed increase of the soliton can be significant, although the decay eventually becomes stabilized when the soliton equilibrates with the ambient sound field.
14 December 2014 in Zeitschrift für angewandte Mathematik und Physik