Ring vortex destabilization in supersaturated 3He-4He liquid mixtures at low temperatures

TL;DR

This paper investigates how ring vortices influence the destabilization of supersaturated 3He-4He liquid mixtures at very low temperatures, revealing that larger vortices cause earlier segregation of 3He, which helps explain experimental observations.

Contribution

It introduces a model linking ring vortex size to the critical supersaturation in helium mixtures, providing new insights into the destabilization mechanism at low temperatures.

Findings

Large ring vortices induce segregation at lower concentrations.

Ring vortices are a plausible mechanism for small critical supersaturation.

The study explains experimental destabilization behavior.

Abstract

The effect of ring vortices on the destabilization of supersaturated liquid helium mixtures at very low temperatures is investigated as a function of pressure. We have found that large ring vortices trigger the segregation of 3He at smaller values of the concentration than small ring vortices. Our calculations indicate that the existence of ring vortices in the mixture is a possible mechanism to understand the rather small degree of critical supersaturation found in the experiments.