${}^{3}P_{2}$ superfluids realized in neutron stars are the largest topological quantum matters in our Universe. We establish the existence and stability of non-Abelian half-quantum vortices (HQVs) in ${}^{3}P_{2}$ superfluids with strong magnetic fields. Using a self-consistent microscopic approach, we find that a singly quantized vortex is energetically destabilized into a pair of two non-Abelian HQVs owing to the strongly spin-orbit-coupled pairing. We find a topologically protected Majorana fermion on each HQV, thereby providing two-fold non-Abelian anyons characterized by both Majorana fermions and a non-Abelian first homotopy group.
We study quantized vortices in ${}^{3}P_{2}$ superfluids using a microscopic theory for the first time. The theory is based on the Eilenberger equation to determine the order parameters and the Bogoliubov-de Gennes (BdG) equation to obtain the eigenenergies and the core magnetization. Within axisymmetric vortex configurations, we find several stable and metastable vortex configurations which depend on the strength of a magnetic field, similar to a $v$ vortex and $o$ vortex in $^3$He superfluids. We demonstrate that the $o$ vortex is the most stable axisymmetric vortex in the presence of a stro…
Topological defects arise in a variety of systems, e.g. vortices in superfluid helium to cosmic strings in the early universe. There is an indirect evidence of neutron superfluid vortices from glitches in pulsars. One also expects that topological defects may arise in various high baryon density phases of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), e.g. superfluid topological vortices in the color flavor locked (CFL) phase. Though vastly different in energy/length scales, there are universal features, e.g. in the formation of all these defects. Utilizing this universality, we investigate the possibility of …
This is the manuscript version of the Physics ViewPoint article introducing the paper "Observation of half-quantum vortices in topological superfluid $^3$He", by S. Autti et al., which appeared in Physical Review Letters, December 14, 2016.
Half-quantum votices and ordinary vortices in a rotating thin film superfluid $^3$He under a strong magnetic field are considered. It is shown that $2n+1$ half-quantum vortices interpolates between $n$ singular vortices and $n+1$ singular vortices as the angular velocity is changed. The phase diagram of the vortex configurations in the angular velocity-magnetic field space is obtained for a paramagnon parameter $δ=0.05$.
Force on proton vortices in superfluid and superconducting matter of neutron stars is calculated at vanishing stellar temperature. Both longitudinal (dissipative) and transverse (Lorentz-type) components of the force are derived in a coherent way and compared in detail with the corresponding expressions available in the literature. This allows us to resolve a controversy about the form of the Lorentz-type force component acting on proton vortices. The calculated force is a key ingredient in magnetohydrodynamics of superconducting neutron stars and is important for modeling the evolution of ste…
It has been widely believed that half quantum vortices are indispensable to realize topological stable Majorana zero modes and non-Abelian anyons in spinful superconductors/superfluids. Contrary to this wisdom, we here demonstrate that integer quantum vortices in spinful superconductors can host topologically stable Majorana zero modes because of the mirror symmetry. The symmetry protected Majorana fermions may exhibit non-Abelian anyon braiding.
Alice and Boojums are both representative characters created by Lewis Carroll. We show that they possibly meet in cores of rotating neutron stars. Recent studies of quark-hadron continuity suggest that neutron superfluid matter can connect smoothly to two-flavor symmetric quark matter at high densities. We study how this can be maintained in the presence of the vortices. In the neutron matter, quantized superfluid vortices arise. In the two-flavor dense quark matter, vortices carrying color magnetic fluxes together with fractionally quantized superfluid circulations appear as the most stable c…
The effects of pinning between fluxoids and vortices in the core of a neutron star, on the dynamics of the core neutron superfluid are considered. The pinning impedes, but does not absolutely block, any radial as well as {\em azimuthal} motion of the neutron vortices with respect to the lattice of fluxoids. The time scale for the coupling of rotation of the core superfluid to the rest of the star is calculated, allowing for the effect of the finite frictional force on the neutron vortices due to their pinning with the fluxoids. This turns out to be the dominant mechanism for the coupling of th…
本文提出了一个中子星壳内中子涡旋的微观量子力学模型。在简要介绍了Bogoliubov- de Gennes方程，这是我们的计算的基础上，我们提出的结果的密度分布，涡核的大小和涡能量，无论是一个孤立的中子涡和涡核重叠的情况下，与一个圆柱形核。证实了涡核尺寸的早期结果，表明涡核尺寸随密度的变化比BCS公式预测的要小得多。
We investigate the groundstate behaviour of Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard lattices in the presence of a synthetic magnetic field, via a Gutzwiller ansatz. Specifically, we study the Mott-Superfluid transition, and the formation of vortex lattices in the superfluid regime. We find a suppression of the superfluid fraction due to the frustration induced by the incommensurate magnetic and spacial lattice lengths. We also predict the formation of regime.
A rotating ultracold S-wave superfluid Fermi gas is considered, when the population imbalance (or equivalently the mismatch in chemical potentials) corresponds to the Larkin-Ovchinnikov-Fulde-Ferrell (LOFF) state in the vicinity of the Lifshitz critical point. It is shown that under these conditions the critical angular velocity in two-dimensional systems is an oscillating function of temperature and population imbalance giving rise to reentrant superfluid phases. This leads to vortex lattices with multiple-quantized circulation quanta. The reason for this behavior is the population by Cooper …
We calculate the relaxation of Brinkman-Smith mode via Leggett-Takagi relaxation in the presence of an isolated vortex in superfluid 3He-B. The calculation is based on an analytical solution of the order parameter far from the vortex axis. We obtain an expression for the dissipated power per vortex length as a function of the tipping angle of the magnetization and the orientation of the static magnetic field with respect to the vortex.
Motivated by a recent experiment on superfluid 3He-A confined in narrow parallel plates using a rotating cryostat, we explore possible vortices stable under magnetic field applied to arbitrary angle relative to the plates in order to seek vortices which can accommodate the Majorana zero mode in the core. After proving that the singular vortex with the unit winding number provides the Majorana mode in the spinful situation, we establish the phase diagram in the plane; the rotation frequency $Ω$ vs system size R by finding possible order parameter textures within the Ginzburg-Landau framework. W…
We describe the first measurement on Andreev scattering of thermal excitations from a vortex configuration with known density, spatial extent, and orientations in 3He-B superfluid. The heat flow from a blackbody radiator in equilibrium rotation at constant angular velocity is measured with two quartz tuning fork oscillators. One oscillator creates a controllable density of excitations at 0.2Tc base temperature and the other records the thermal response. The results are compared to numerical calculations of ballistic propagation of thermal quasiparticles through a cluster of rectilinear vortice…
We propose a $\mathbb{U}(1) \times \mathbb{Z}_2$ effective gauge theory for vortices in a $p_x+ip_y$ superfluid in two dimensions. The combined gauge transformation binds $\mathbb{U}(1)$ and $\mathbb{Z}_2$ defects so that the total transformation remains single-valued and manifestly preserves the the particle-hole symmetry of the action. The $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge field introduces a complete Chern-Simons term in addition to a partial one associated with the $\mathbb{U}(1)$ gauge field. The theory reproduces the known physics of vortex dynamics such as a Magnus force proportional to the superflui…
We report theoretical results for the stability of half-quantum vortices (HQVs) in the superfluid phases of $^3$He confined in highly anisotropic Nafen aerogel. Superfluidity of $^3$He confined in Nafen is the realization of a "nematic superfluid" with Cooper pairs condensed into a single p-wave orbital aligned along the anisotropy axis of the Nafen aerogel. In addition to the nematic phase, we predict a second "chiral" phase that onsets at a lower transition temperature. This chiral phase spontaneously breaks time-reversal symmetry and is a topological superfluid. Both superfluid phases are e…
Unlike to superfluid $^4$He the superfluid $^3$He-A support the existence of vortices with half quantum of circulation as well as single quantum vortices. The singular single quanta vortices as well as nonsingular vortices with 2 quanta of circulation have been revealed in rotating $^3$He-A. However, the half quantum vortices in open geometry always possess an extra energy due to spin-orbit coupling leading to formation of domain wall at distances larger than dipole length $\sim 10^{-3}cm$ from the vortex axis. Fortunately the same magnetic dipole-dipole interaction does not prevent the existe…
We develop a low-energy model of a unidirectional Larkin-Ovchinnikov (LO) state. Because the underlying rotational and translational symmetries are broken spontaneously, this gapless superfluid is a smectic liquid crystal, that exhibits fluctuations that are qualitatively stronger than in a conventional superfluid, thus requiring a fully nonlinear description of its Goldstone modes. Consequently, at nonzero temperature the LO superfluid is an algebraic phase even in 3d. It exhibits half-integer vortex-dislocation defects, whose unbinding leads to transitions to a superfluid nematic and other p…
The possible stable singular vortex (SV) and half-quantum vortex (HQV) of the superfluid $^3$He-A phase confined in restricted geometries are investigated. The associated low-energy excitations are calculated in connection with the possible existence of Majorana zero modes obeying non-Abelian statistics. The energetics between those vortices is carefully examined using the standard Ginzburg-Landau (GL) functional with a strong-coupling correction. The Fermi liquid effect, which is not included in the GL functional, is considered approximately within the London approach. This allows us to deter…
We study the impact of the non-analytic reconstruction of vortex cores on static vortex structures in weakly coupled superfluids. We show that in rotating two-dimensional systems, the Abrikosov vortex lattice is unstable to vortex core deformation: Each zero of the wave function becomes a cut of finite length. The directors characterizing the orientations of the cuts are themselves ordered in superstructures due either to surface effects or to interaction with shear deformations of the lattice (spiral structure). Similar instability may be also observable in clean superconducting films.
We compute the orbital angular momentum $L_z$ of an s-wave paired superfluid in the presence of an axisymmetric multiply quantized vortex. For vortices with winding number $|k| > 1$, we find that in the weak-pairing BCS regime $L_z$ is significantly reduced from its value $\hbar N k/2$ in the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) regime, where $N$ is the total number of fermions. This deviation results from the presence of unpaired fermions in the BCS ground state, which arise as a consequence of spectral flow along the vortex sub-gap states. We support our results analytically and numerically by s…
I show that the usual model of the rotational response of a neutron star, which predicts rotation-induced neutronic vortices and no rotation-induced protonic vortices, does not hold (i) beyond a certain threshold of entrainment interaction strength nor (ii) in case of nonzero $Σ^-$ hyperon gap. I demonstrate that in both these cases the rotational response involves creation of phase windings in electrically charged condensate. Lattices of bound states of vortices which are caused these effects can (for a range of parameters) strongly reduce the interaction between rotation-induced vortices wit…
Superconductors exhibit unconventional electronic and magnetic properties if the Cooper pair wave function breaks additional symmetries of the normal phase. Rotational symmetries in spin- and orbital spaces, as well as discrete symmetries such as space and time inversion, may be spontaneously broken. When this occurs in conjunction with broken global U(1) gauge symmetry, new physical phenomena are exhibited below the superconducting transition that are characteristic of the broken symmetries of the pair condensate. This is particularly true of vortices and related defects. Superconductors with…
The polar phase of superfluid $^3$He is stable in "nematically ordered" densed aerogel. A rotating vessel with the polar superfluid can be filled either by an array of the single quantum vortices or by an array of the half-quantum vortices. It is shown that the inhomogeneous distribution of the spin part of the order parameter arising in an array of half-quantum vortices in strong enough magnetic field tilted to the average direction of aerogel strands leads to the appearance of a satellite in the NMR signal shifted in the negative direction with respect to the Larmor frequency. The satellite …
We find chiral non-Abelian vortices having windings only in one of the diquark condensations of left-handed and right-handed quarks in the color-flavor locked phase of dense QCD. They are the minimum vortices carrying half color magnetic fluxes of those of non-Abelian semi-superfluid vortices (color magnetic flux tubes) and 1/6 quantized superfluid circulations of Abelian superfluid vortices. These vortices carry ${\mathbb C}P^2$ orientational moduli in the internal space corresponding to their fluxes. The ${\mathbb C}P^2$ moduli of two chiral non-Abelian vortices with chiralities opposite to …
In order to help detecting superfluidity, we theoretically investigate p-wave pairing superfluids in neutral Fermion atom gases confined by a three dimensimentional (3D) harmonic potential. The Ginzburg-Landau framework, which is generic for p-wave superfluids, is used to describe the order parameter spatial structure, or texture characterized by the l-vector both at rest and under rotation. The l-vector configuration is strongly contrained by the boundary condition due to a trap. It is found that the ground state textures exhibit spontaneous supercurrent at rest both cigar and pancake shape t…
We extend our previous analysis on the exchange statistics of vortices having a single Dirac fermion trapped in each core, to the case where vortices trap two Dirac fermions with U(2) symmetry. Such a system of vortices with non-Abelian Dirac fermions appears in color superconductors at extremely high densities, and in supersymmetric QCD. We show that the exchange of two vortices having doublet Dirac fermions in each core is expressed by non-Abelian representations of a braid group, which is explicitly verified in the matrix representation of the exchange operators when the number of vortices …
Topological superconductors classified as type D admit zero-energy Majorana fermions inside vortex cores, and consequently the exchange statistics of vortices becomes non-Abelian, giving a promising example of non-Abelian anyons. On the other hand, types C and DIII admit zero-energy Dirac fermions inside vortex cores. It has been long believed that an essential condition for the realization of non-Abelian statistics is non-locality of Dirac fermions made of two Majorana fermions trapped inside two well-separated vortices as in the case of type D. Contrary to this conventional wisdom, however, …
Non-Abelian vortices are topologically stable objects in the color-flavor locked (CFL) phase of dense QCD. We derive a dual Lagrangian starting with the Ginzburg-Landau effective Lagrangian for the CFL phase, and obtain topological interactions of non-Abelian vortices with quasiparticles such as $U(1)_B$ Nambu-Goldstone bosons (phonons) and massive gluons. We find that the phonons couple to the translational zero modes of the vortices while the gluons couple to their orientational zero modes in the internal space.
