Hydrodynamic Decay of Decorated Quantum Vortex Rings

TL;DR

This paper investigates the decay mechanisms of quantum vortex rings in superfluid helium, proposing a phenomenological model that incorporates viscous and quantum dissipation effects to explain experimental observations.

Contribution

It introduces a new energy-budget based phenomenological model that accounts for vortex decay via viscous and quantum dissipation mechanisms, addressing a longstanding puzzle.

Findings

Decay of vortex rings explained by viscous and quantum dissipation

Model aligns with experimental visualizations in Helium II

Highlights the role of vortex backreaction on fluid dynamics

Abstract

The decay of quantum vortex rings in counterflow regimes, visualized in Helium II with the help of solid hydrogen particles trapped to their cores, has been a puzzling issue within the usual description of superfluid vortex dynamics, grounded on the hypothesis that a vortex filament is, effectively, an extended massless object subject to a canceling superposition of Magnus and mutual friction forces. We discuss, from a general energy-budget point of view, a phenomenological solution of this problem, which relies on viscous and quantum dissipation mechanisms, the later associated to the backreaction of vortex singular structures on the surrounding two-component fluid mixture.