Hydrodynamic flow in classical and quantum fluids can be either laminar or turbulent. Vorticity in turbulent flow is often modelled with vortex filaments. While this represents an idealization in classical fluids, vortices are topologically stable quantized objects in superfluids. Superfluid turbulence is therefore thought to be important for the understanding of turbulence more generally. The fermionic 3He superfluids are attractive systems to study because their characteristics vary widely over the experimentally accessible temperature regime. Here we report nuclear magnetic resonance measurements and numerical simulations indicating the existence of sharp transition to turbulence in the B phase of superfluid 3He. Above 0.60T(c) (where T(c) is the transition temperature for superfluidity) the hydrodynamics are regular, while below this temperature we see turbulent behaviour. The transition is insensitive to the fluid velocity, in striking contrast to current textbook knowledge of turbulence. Rather, it is controlled by an intrinsic parameter of the superfluid: the mutual friction between the normal and superfluid components of the flow, which causes damping of the vortex motion.
The first realization of instabilities in the shear flow between two superfluids is examined. The interface separating the A and B phases of superfluid 3 He is magnetically stabilized. With uniform rotation we create a state with discontinuous tangential velocities at the interface, supported by the difference in quantized vorticity in the two phases. This state remains stable and nondissipative to high relative velocities, but finally undergoes an instability when an interfacial mode is excited and some vortices cross the phase boundary. The measured properties of the instability are consistent with a modified Kelvin-Helmholtz theory.Instabilities in the shear flow between two layers of fluids [1] belong to a class of interfacial hydrodynamics which is attributed to many natural phenomena. Examples are wave generation by wind blowing over water [2], the flapping of a sail or flag in the wind [3,4], and even flow in granular beds [5]. In the hydrodynamics of inviscid and incompressible fluids the transition from calm to wavy interfaces is known as the Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability [6,2]. Since Lord Kelvin's treatise in 1871, difficulties have plagued its description in ordinary fluids, which are viscous and dissipative. They also display a shear-flow instability, but its correspondence with that in the ideal limit is not straightforward. The tangential velocity discontinuity in the shear-flow instability is created by a vortex sheet. In a viscous fluid a planar vortex sheet is not a stable equilibrium state and not a solution of the hydrodynamic equations [7].Superfluids provide a close variation of the ideal inviscid limit considered by Lord Kelvin and thus an environment where the KH theory can be tested. The initial state is a non-dissipative vortex sheet -the interface between two superfluids brought into a state of relative shear flow. So far the only experimentally accessible case where this can be studied in stationary conditions, is the interface between 3 He-A and 3 He-B [8], where the order parameter changes symmetry and magnitude, but is continuous on the scale of the superfluid coherence length ξ ∼ 10 nm. We discuss an experiment, where the two phases slide with respect to each other in a rotating cryostat:3 He-A performs solid-body-like rotation while 3 He-B is in the vortex-free state and thus stationary in the laboratory frame. While increasing the rotation velocity Ω, we record the events when the AB phase boundary becomes unstable -when some circulation from the A-phase crosses the AB interface and vortex lines are introduced into the initially vortex-free B phase. On increasing the rotation further, the instability occurs repeatedly. Such a succession of instability events can be understood as a spin-up of 3 He-B by rotating 3 He-A. Our experimental setup is shown in Fig. 1. The AB boundary is forced against a magnetic barrier in a smooth-walled quartz container, by cooling the sample below T AB at constant pressure in a rotating refrigerator. The number of vortices in both phases is indepe...
Rapid new developments have occurred in superfluid hydrodynamics since the discovery of a host of unusual phenomena which arise from the diverse structure and dynamics of quantized vortices in 3 He superfluids. These have been studied in rotating flow with NMR measurements which at best provide an accurate mapping of the different types of topological defects in the superfluid order parameter field. Four observations are reviewed here: (1) the interplay of different vortex structures at the first-order interface between the two major superfluid 3 He phases, 3 He-A and 3 He-B; (2) the shear flow instability of this phase boundary, which is now known as the superfluid Kelvin-Helmholtz instability; (3) the hydrodynamic transition from turbulent to regular vortex dynamics as a function of increasing dissipation in vortex motion; and (4) the peculiar propagation of vortex lines in a long rotating column which even in the turbulent regime occurs in the form of a helically twisted vortex state behind a well-developed vortex front. The consequences and implications of these observations are discussed, as inferred from measurements, numerical calculations and analytical work.
We study a twisted vortex bundle where quantized vortices form helices circling around the axis of the bundle in a "force-free" configuration. Such a state is created by injecting vortices into a rotating vortex-free superfluid. Using continuum theory we determine the structure and the relaxation of the twisted state. This is confirmed by numerical calculations. We also present experimental evidence of the twisted vortex state in superfluid 3He-B.
A surface-mediated process is identified in 3He-B which generates vortices at a roughly constant rate. It precedes a faster form of turbulence where intervortex interactions dominate. This precursor becomes observable when vortex loops are introduced in low-velocity rotating flow at sufficiently low mutual friction dissipation at temperatures below 0.5Tc. Our measurements indicate that the formation of new loops is associated with a single vortex interacting in the applied flow with the sample boundary. Numerical calculations show that the single-vortex instability arises when a helical Kelvin wave expands from a reconnection kink at the wall and then intersects again with the wall.
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