Covariant description for superfluids in gravitational fields

TL;DR

This paper develops a covariant formalism to describe superfluids in gravitational fields, analyzing vortex stability and forces, with applications to astrophysics.

Contribution

It introduces a covariant generalization of superfluid field theory in gravitational backgrounds, extending flat space concepts to curved spacetime.

Findings

Stability analysis of vortexless superfluids in gravitational fields

Generalization of the Magnus force in curved spacetime

Application to astrophysical superfluid scenarios

Abstract

In this paper we develop a formalism to describe a superfluid in a gravitational background. This formalism is based on a covariant generalization of the field description for a superconductor in terms of a U(1) spontaneous symmetry breaking. We study the stability of the solutions for a vortexless fluid and the force acting on vortices in the fluid, which is a generalization of the well-known flat space-time Magnus force. To clarify the development we include the explicit discussion of two particular cases, one of them of astrophysical interest.