Critical Velocity of Vortex Nucleation in Rotating Superfluid 3He-A

We have measured the critical velocity v_c at which 3He-A in a rotating cylinder becomes unstable against the formation of quantized vortex lines with continuous (singularity-free) core structure. We find that v_c is distributed between a maximum and minimum limit, which we ascribe to a dependence on the texture of the orbital angular momentum l(r) in the cylinder. Slow cool down through T_c in rotation yields l(r) textures for which the measured v_c's are in good agreement with the calculated instability of the expected l texture.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Vortex lines or sheets - what is formed in dynamic drives?

In isotropic macroscopic quantum systems vortex lines can be formed while in anisotropic systems also vortex sheets are possible. Based on measurements of superfluid 3He-A, we present the principles which select between these two competing forms of quantized vorticity: sheets displace lines if the frequency of the external field exceeds a critical limit. The resulting topologically stable state consists of multiple vortex sheets and has much faster dynamics than the state with vortex lines.Comment: RevTex, 5 pages, sumbitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Waterfalls as sources of small charged aerosol particles

In this study, we measured the mobility distributions of cluster and intermediate ions with an ion spectrometer near a waterfall. We observed that the concentration of negative 1.5–10 nm ions was one-hundred fold higher than a reference point 100 m away from the waterfall. Also, the concentration of positive intermediate ions was found to be higher than that at the reference point by a factor of ten. This difference was observed only at the smallest sizes; above 10 nm the difference was insignificant

The hydraulic jump as a white hole

In the geometry of the circular hydraulic jump, the velocity of the liquid in the interior region exceeds the speed of capillary-gravity waves (ripplons), whose spectrum is `relativistic' in the shallow water limit. The velocity flow is radial and outward, and thus the relativistic ripplons cannot propagating into the interior region. In terms of the effective 2+1 dimensional Painleve-Gullstrand metric appropriate for the propagating ripplons, the interior region imitates the white hole. The hydraulic jump represents the physical singularity at the white-hole horizon. The instability of the vacuum in the ergoregion inside the circular hydraulic jump and its observation in recent experiments on superfluid 4He by E. Rolley, C. Guthmann, M.S. Pettersen and C. Chevallier in physics/0508200 are discussed.Comment: 10 pages, no figures, references added, version submitted to JETP Letter

Rotational quantum friction in superfluids: Radiation from object rotating in superfluid vacuum

We discuss the friction experienced by the body rotating in superfluid liquid at T=0. The effect is analogous to the amplification of electromagnetic radiation and spontaneous emission by the body or black hole rotating in quantum vacuum, first discussed by Zel'dovich and Starobinsky. The friction is caused by the interaction of the part of the liquid, which is rigidly connected with the rotating body and thus represents the comoving detector, with the "Minkowski" vacuum outside the body. The emission process is the quantum tunneling of quasiparticles from the detector to the ergoregion, where the energy of quasiparticles is negative in the rotating frame. This quantum rotational friction caused by the emission of quasiparticles is estimated for phonons and rotons in superfluid 4He and for Bogoliubov fermions in superfluid 3He.Comment: RevTex file, 4 pages, 1 figur

“Superconductor-Insulator Transition” in a Single Josephson Junction

VI curves of resistively shunted single Josephson junctions with different capacitances and tunneling resistances are found to display a crossover between two types of VI curves: one without and another with a resistance bump (negative second derivative) at zero bias. The crossover corresponds to the dissipative phase transition (superconductor-insulator transition) at which macroscopic quantum tunneling delocalizes the Josephson phase and destroys superconductivity. Our measured phase diagram does not agree with the diagram predicted by the original theory, but does coincide with a theory that takes into account the accuracy of voltage measurements and thermal fluctuations.Peer reviewe

Defect Formation in Quench-Cooled Superfluid Phase Transition

We use neutron absorption in rotating 3He-B to heat locally a 10 micrometer-size volume into normal phase. When the heated region cools back in microseconds, vortex lines are formed. We record with NMR the number of lines as a function of superflow velocity and compare to the Kibble-Zurek theory of vortex-loop freeze-out from a random network of defects. The measurements confirm the calculated loop-size distribution and show that also the superfluid state itself forms as a patchwork of competing A and B phase blobs. This explains the A to B transition in supercooled neutron-irradiated 3He-A.Comment: RevTex file, 4 pages, 3 figures, resubmitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Critical Velocity in 3He-B Vibrating Wire Experiments as Analog of Vacuum Instability in a Slowly Oscillating Electric Field

The Lancaster experiments with a cylindrical wire moving in superfluid 3He-B are discussed, where the measured critical velocity of pair creation is much below the Landau critical velocity. The phenomenon is shown to be analogous to the instability of the electron-positron vacuum in an adiabatically alternating strong electric potential of both signs, where the positive- and negative-root levels cross and thus the instability treshold is twice less than in the conventional case of a single static potential well.Comment: RevTex file, 6 pages, 4 figure

Event horizons and ergoregions in 3He

Event horizons for fermion quasiparticles naturally arise in moving textures in superconductors and Fermi superfluids. We discuss the example of a planar soliton moving in superfluid 3He-A, which is closely analogous to a charged rotating black hole. The moving soliton will radiate quasiparticles via the Hawking effect at a temperature of about 5 \mu K, and via vacuum polarization induced by the effective `electromagnetic field' and `ergoregion'. Superfluid 3He-A thus appears to be a useful system for experimental and theoretical simulations of quantum effects related to event horizons and ergoregions.Comment: RevTex, 8 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. D, corrected after referee repor

Noise of a single electron transistor on a Si3N4 membrane

We have investigated the influence of electron-beam writing on the creation of charge trapping centers which cause 1/f noise in single electron transistors (SET). Two Al/AlOx/Al devices were compared: one where the SET is on a {100} silicon wafer covered by a 120-nm-thick layer of Si3N4, and another one in which the Si was etched away from below the nitride membrane before patterning the SET. The background charge noise was found to be 1×10 exp −3 e/√Hz at 10 Hz in both devices, independent of the substrate thickness.Peer reviewe