Propagation of self-localised Q-ball solitons in the $^3$He universe

TL;DR

This paper reports the first observation of a propagating, long-lived Q-ball in superfluid helium-3, modeled by a magnon Bose-Einstein condensate, providing a laboratory analogue for theoretical particles in high-energy physics.

Contribution

It demonstrates a novel experimental realization of Q-balls using magnon condensates in superfluid helium-3, enabling future studies of their dynamics and interactions.

Findings

Observation of a propagating Q-ball in superfluid helium-3

Accurate modeling of Q-ball Hamiltonian with magnon number influence

Support for multiple coexisting Q-balls in the system

Abstract

In relativistic quantum field theories, compact objects of interacting bosons can become stable owing to conservation of an additive quantum number $Q$. Discovering such $Q$-balls propagating in the Universe would confirm supersymmetric extensions of the standard model and may shed light on the mysteries of dark matter, but no unambiguous experimental evidence exists. We report observation of a propagating long-lived $Q$-ball in superfluid $^3$He, where the role of $Q$-ball is played by a Bose-Einstein condensate of magnon quasiparticles. We achieve accurate representation of the $Q$-ball Hamiltonian using the influence of the number of magnons, corresponding to the charge $Q$, on the orbital structure of the superfluid $^3$He order parameter. This realisation supports multiple coexisting $Q$-balls which in future allows studies of $Q$-ball dynamics, interactions, and collisions.