The mystery of an unidentified electron object is just a teaser problem; we are ready for other challenges.
- Natalia Berloff
Researchers have developed a new mathematical framework capable of describing motions in superfluids – low temperature fluids that exhibit classical as well as quantum behavior. The framework was used to lift the veil of mystery surrounding strange objects in superfluid helium (detected ten years ago at Brown University). The study, conducted by an international collaboration of researchers from the UK, Russia and France is published in the journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The quantum nature of superfluids manifests itself in the form of quantized vortices, tiny twisters, with the core sizes of the order of an Angstrom (0.1nm – approximately the diameter of an atom) that move through fluid severing and coalescing, forming bundles and tangles. To make these processes even more intricate and distinct from motions in usual classical fluids, these tiny twisters live on the background consisting of a mixture of viscous and inviscid fluid components that constitute superfluid. The mathematical modelling of such complex systems that involve a range of scales is a notoriously difficult problem.
The international team of researchers – Natalia Berloff of the University of Cambridge and Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Marc Brachet of Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie and Nick Proukakis of Joint Quantum Centre Durham-Newcastle – came up with a novel framework for achieving this task. The team applied their method to elucidate an intriguing phenomenon in liquid helium research.
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Image: Vortex rings as the result of vortex multiplication in a quantum fluid; some electrons are free, and some got trapped by one or more vortices
Credit: Gleb and Sofia Berloff, ISM
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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