The flow of superfluid helium at very low temperatures around an oscillating microsphere is known to be unstable slightly above the critical velocity. The flow pattern switches intermittently between potential flow and turbulence. From time series recorded at constant temperature and driving force the statistical properties of the switching phenomenon are discussed. Based on our recent understanding of the critical velocity vc of oscillatory superflows, i.e., v_c = sqrt(kappa omega), where kappa is the circulation quantum and omega is the oscillation frequency, the analysis is being refined now. From the exponential distribution of the lifetimes of the turbulent phases quantitative information on the vortex density L can be inferred such as the distribution and the width of the fluctuations of L. The phases of potential flow show a Rayleigh distribution of the excess oscillation amplitude above the amplitude at turbulent flow. The rms value is found to scale as omega^{-3/2}.
The superfluid Reynolds number $Re_s = (v - v_c) \,D/ κ$ can be expressed simply by the number of vortex rings that are shed during a half-period of the oscillation.
It is shown that the critical velocity of a small sphere oscillating in superfluid helium increases with the square root of the oscillation frequency. This behavior can be described by a simple dimensional argument. The size of the sphere and the temperature of the superfluid are found to have no or only very little effect. Surface properties of the sphere and remanent vorticity may have an influence but have not been under systematic investigation in these measurements
We present experiments on nematic aerogel oscillating in superfluid $^3$He. This aerogel consists of nearly parallel mullite strands and is attached to a vibrating wire moving along the direction of the strands. Previous nuclear magnetic resonance experiments in $^3$He confined in similar aerogel sample have shown that the superfluid transition of $^3$He in aerogel occurs into the polar phase and the transition temperature ($T_{ca}$) is only slightly suppressed with respect to the superfluid transition temperature of bulk $^3$He. In present experiments we observed a change in resonant properti…
Visualization using tracer particles is a relatively new tool available for the study of superfluid turbulence and flow, which is applied here to oscillating objects submerged in the liquid. We report observations of a structure seen in videos taken from outside a cryostat filled with superfluid helium at 2 K, which is possibly a vortex loop attached to an oscillator. The feature, which has the shape of an incomplete arch, is visualized due to the presence of solid H2 tracer particles and is attached to a beam oscillating at 38 Hz in the liquid. It has been recorded in videos taken at 240 fram…
The onset of turbulent flow around an oscillating sphere in superfluid $^4$He is known to occur at a critical velocity $v_c \sim \sqrt{κω}$ where $κ$ is the circulation quantum and $ω$ is the oscillation frequency. But it is also well known that initially in a first up-sweep of the oscillation amplitude, $v_c$ can be considerably exceeded before the transition occurs, thus leading to a strong hysteresis in the velocity sweeps. The velocity amplitude $v_c^* > v_c$ where the transition finally occurs is related to the density $L_0$ of the remanent vortices in the superfluid. Moreover, at tempera…
The critical velocity vc for the onset of turbulent drag of small spheres oscillating in superfluid 4He is frequency dependent (omega/2pi from 100 Hz to 700 Hz) and is described by vc = 2.6sqrt(kappa*omega), where kappa is the circulation quantum. A qualitative analysis based on a recent theory of the onset of superfluid turbulence gives vc = sqrt(8*kappa*omega/beta), where beta is of order 1 and depends on the coefficients of mutual friction. This agrees well with the data and implies that vc is a universal critical velocity that is independent of geometry, size, and surface properties of the…
The critical velocity v_c for the onset of quantum turbulence in oscillatory flows of superfluid helium is universal and scales as v_c \sim \sqrt{κω}, where κis the circulation quantum and ωis the oscillation frequency. This result can be derived from a general argument based on the "superfluid Reynolds number". Only the numerical prefactor may depend somewhat on the geometry of the oscillating object because the flow velocity at the surface of the object may differ from the velocity amplitude of the body. A more detailed analysis derived from the dynamics of the turbulent state gives v_c \app…
The flow of superfluid $^4$He around a translationally oscillating sphere, levitating without mechanical support, can either be laminar or turbulent, depending on the velocity amplitude. Below a critical velocity $v_c$ that scales as $ω^{1/2}$, and is temperature independent below 1 K, the flow is laminar (potential flow). Below 0.5 K the linear drag force is caused by ballistic phonon scattering that vanishes as T$^4$ until background damping, measured in the empty cell, becomes dominant for T $<$ 0.1 K. Increasing the velocity amplitude above $v_c$ leads to a transition from potential flow t…
Low-temperature grid generated turbulence is investigated by using numerical simulations of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The statistics of regularized velocity increments are studied. Increments of the incompressible velocity are found to be skewed for turbulent states. Results are later confronted with the (quasi) homogeneous and isotropic Taylor-Green flow, revealing the universality of the statistics. For this flow, the statistics are found to be intermittent and a Kolmogorov constant close to the one of classical fluid is found for the second order structure function.
This comment is on Phys.Rev.Lett. 144, 155302 (2015) by M.T. Reeves, T.P. Billam, B.P. Anderson, and A.S. Bradley "Identifying a superfluid Reynolds number via dynamical similarity" where a new superfluid Reynolds number is introduced. This definition is shown to be useful in the data analysis of the finite lifetime of turbulence observed with an oscillating sphere in superfluid helium at mK temperatures in a small velocity interval $Δv =(v-v_c)$ just above the critical velocity $v_c$. The very rapid increase of the lifetime with increasing superfluid Reynolds number is compared with the "supe…
This paper reports results of the computation of the drag force exerted on an oscillating object in quantum turbulence in superfluid $^4$He. The drag force is calculated on the basis of numerical simulations of quantum turbulent flow about the object. The drag force is proportional to the square of the magnitude of the oscillation velocity, which is similar to that in classical turbulence at high Reynolds number. The drag coefficient is also calculated, and its value is found to be of the same order as that observed in previous experiments. The correspondence between quantum and classical turb…
The onset of turbulent flow around an oscillating sphere is known to occur at a critical velocity vc ~ sqrt(kappa omega) where kappa is the circulation quantum and omega is the oscillation frequency. However, in a small interval of driving force amplitudes F (or corresponding velocity amplitudes of few percent above vc) the turbulent flow is found to be unstable. The flow pattern switches intermittently between potential flow and turbulence. The lifetimes of the turbulent phases have an exponential distribution and the mean lifetimes tau grow very rapidly with increasing driving force, namely …
Vortex shedding from a microsphere oscillating in superfluid $^4$He at mK temperatures is compared with that from a laser beam moving in a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) as observed by other authors. In particular, in either case a linear dependence of the shedding frequency $f_v$ on $Δv = v - v_c$ is observed, where $v$ is the velocity amplitude of the sphere or the constant velocity of the laser beam above a critical velocity $v_c$ for the onset of turbulent flow: $f_v = a \,Δv$, where the coefficient $a$ is proportional to the oscillation frequency $ ω$above some characteristic frequency $ω…
The evolution of semicircular quantum vortex loops in oscillating potential flow emerging from an aperture is simulated in some highly symmetrical cases. As the frequency of potential flow oscillation increases, vortex loops that are evolving so as eventually to cross all of the streamlines of potential flow are drawn back toward the aperture when the flow reverses. As a result, the escape size of the vortex loops, and hence the net energy transferred from potential flow to vortex flow in such 2 Pi phase-slip events, decreases as the oscillation frequency increases. Above some aperture-depende…
Coherent condensates appear as emergent phenomena in many systems, sharing the characteristic feature of an energy gap separating the lowest excitations from the condensate ground state. This implies that a scattering object, moving through the system with high enough velocity for the excitation spectrum in the scatter frame to become gapless, can create excitations at no energy cost, initiating the breakdown of the condensate. This limit is the well-known Landau velocity. While, for the neutral Fermionic superfluid 3He-B in the T=0 limit, flow around an oscillating body displays a very clear …
Third sound measurements of superfluid $^4$He thin films adsorbed on 10 nm diameter multiwall carbon nanotubes are used to probe the superfluid onset temperature as a function of the film thickness, and to study the temperature dependence of the film compressibility. The nanotubes provide a highly ordered carbon surface, with layer-by-layer growth of the adsorbed film as shown by oscillation peaks in the third sound velocity at the completion of the third, fourth, and fifth atomic layers, arising from oscillations in the compressibility. In temperature sweeps the third sound velocity at very l…
The transition to turbulence in the boundary flow of superfluid $^4$He is investigated using a vortex--free vibrating wire. At high wire vibration velocities, we found that stable alternating flow around the wire enters a turbulent phase triggered by free vortex rings. Numerical simulations of vortex dynamics demonstrate that vortex rings can attach to the surface of an oscillating obstacle and expand unstably due to the boundary flow of the superfluid, forming turbulence. Experimental investigations indicate that the turbulent phase continues even after stopping the injection of vortex rings,…
Oscillating solid bodies have frequently been used for studying the properties of normal and superfluid helium. In particular, the transition from laminar flow to turbulence has attracted much interest recently. The purpose of this note is to review several central features of this transition in oscillatory flow, which have been inaccurately formulated in some recent work.
Using effective field theory approach we study a homogeneous superfluid state with a single (gapless) Fermi surface, recently suggested as a possible phase for an ultracold Fermi gas with spin-population imbalance. We find an unconventional form of the interaction between vortices. The presence of gapless fermions gives rise to an attractive long-range potential oscillating in space, analogous to the RKKY magnetic interaction in metals. Our study then leads to an interesting question as to the nature of the vortex lattice in the presence of competition between the usual repulsive logarithmic C…
Filamentary regions of high vorticity irregularly form and disappear in the turbulent flows of classical fluids. We report an experimental comparative study of these so-called " coherent structures " in a classical versus quantum fluid, using liquid helium with a superfluid fraction varied from 0% up to 83%. The low pressure core of the vorticity filaments is detected by pressure probes located on the sidewall of a 78-cm-diameter Von Kármán cell driven up to record turbulent intensity (R $λ$ $\sim$ $\sqrt$ Re 10000). The statistics of occurrence, magnitude and relative distribution of the fila…
We report a comprehensive investigation of the effects of quantum turbulence and quantized vorticity in superfluid $^4$He on the motion of a micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) resonator. We find that the MEMS is uniquely sensitive to quantum turbulence present in the fluid. To generate turbulence in the fluid, a quartz tuning fork (TF) is placed in proximity to the MEMS and driven at large amplitude. We observe that at low velocity, the MEMS is damped by the turbulence, and that above a critical velocity, $v_c \simeq 5\,$mm\,s$^{-1}$, the turbulent damping is greatly reduced. We find that …
Quantum mechanics places significant restrictions on the hydrodynamics of superfluid flows. Despite this it has been observed that turbulence in superfluids can, in a statistical sense, share many of the properties of its classical brethren; coherent bundles of superfluid vortices are often invoked as an important feature leading to this quasi-classical behavior. A recent experimental study [E. Rusaouen, B. Rousset, and P.-E. Roche, EPL, {\bf 118}, 1, 14005, (2017)] inferred the presence of these bundles through intermittency in the pressure field, however direct visualization of the quantized…
We apply our recently developed model of a Bose condensate of quantum kink wave in solid He4 to understand recent torsional oscillator experimental results of the citical velocities and the effect of the steady and oscillating rotations at around 0.1 degree K. When the D.C. rotation is present we find a decrease of the Q factor given by $Q^{-1} \propto f_{sf}\times Ω_{D}/ω_{TO}$ where $f_{sf}$ is the superfluid fraction; $Ω_{D}$, the D. C. angular rotation velocity, $ω_{TO}$, the torsional oscillator oscillating frequency. We estimate the AC critical velocity $Ω_A^{crit}$ as that required to g…
We study the statistical and dynamical behavior of turbulent Kelvin waves propagating on quantized vortices in superfluids, and address the controversy concerning the energy spectrum that is associated with these excitations. Finding the correct energy spectrum is important because Kelvin waves play a major role in the dissipation of energy in superfluid turbulence at near-zero temperatures. In this paper, we show analytically that the solution proposed in Ref. \cite{10LN} enjoys existence, uniqueness and regularity of the pre-factor. Furthermore, we present numerical results of the dynamical …
Recently, a homogeneous superfluid state with a single gapless Fermi surface was predicted to be the ground state of an ultracold Fermi gas with spin population imbalance in the regime of molecular Bose-Einstein condensation. We study vortices in this novel state using a symmetry-based effective field theory, which captures the low-energy physics of gapless fermions and superfluid phase fluctuations. This theory is applicable to all spin-imbalanced ultracold Fermi gases in the superfluid regime, regardless of whether the original fermion pairing interaction is weak or strong. We find a remarka…
