2009/05/01 by Jeffrey Yepez, George Vahala, Linda Vahala +1 · 91 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Energy cascade #K-omega turbulence model #Kelvin wave #Kinetic energy #Kolmogorov microscales #Mechanics #Physics #Power law #Quantum #Quantum mechanics #Quantum turbulence #Quantum vortex #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #Semiclassical physics #Superfluid helium-4 #Superfluidity #Turbulence #Turbulence kinetic energy #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.103.084501
published in Physical Review Letters 103(8), 084501 (American Physical Society) · 4 pages, 2 figures
arxiv created 2009/05/01 · openalex publication_date 2009/08/19 · arxiv updated 2015/05/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The main topological feature of a superfluid is a quantum vortex with an identifiable inner and outer radius. A novel unitary quantum lattice gas algorithm is used to simulate quantum turbulence of a Bose-Einstein condensate superfluid described by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation on grids up to 5760(3). For the first time, an accurate power-law scaling for the quantum Kelvin wave cascade is determined: k(-3). The incompressible kinetic energy spectrum exhibits very distinct power-law spectra in 3 ranges of k space: a classical Kolmogorov k(-(5/3)) spectrum at scales greater than the outer radius of individual quantum vortex cores and a quantum Kelvin wave cascade spectrum k(-3) on scales smaller than the inner radius of the quantum vortex core. The k(-3) quantum Kelvin wave spectrum due to phonon radiation is robust, while the k(-(5/3)) classical Kolmogorov spectrum becomes robust on large grids.