Formation of topological vortices during superfluid transition in a rotating vessel

Institute of Physics - Bhubaneswar 751005, India and Homi Bhabha National Institute, Training School Complex - Anushakti Nagar, Mumbai 400085, India

^(a) shreyansh@iopb.res.in
^(b) ajit@iopb.res.in

Received: 18 February 2019
Accepted: 29 April 2019

Abstract

Formation of topological defects during symmetry breaking phase transitions via the Kibble mechanism is extensively used in systems ranging from condensed-matter physics to the early stages of the universe. The Kibble mechanism uses topological arguments and predicts equal probabilities for the formation of defects and antidefects. Certain situations, however, require a net bias in the production of defects (or antidefects) during the transition, for example, superfluid transition in a rotating vessel, or flux tubes formation in a superconducting transition in the presence of external magnetic field. In this paper we present a modified Kibble mechanism for a specific system, ⁴He superfluid transition in a rotating vessel, which can produce the required bias of vortices over antivortices. Our results make distinctive predictions which can be tested in superfluid ⁴He experiments. These results also have important implications for superfluid phase transitions in rotating neutron stars and also for any superfluid phases of QCD arising in the non-central low-energy heavy-ion collision experiment due to an overall rotation.