Comment on "Superfluid turbulence from quantum Kelvin wave to classical Kolmogorov cascade". [arXiv:0905.0159v1]

In this comment we point out that the high wavenumber $k^{-3}$ power-law observed by the PRL, [v. 103, 084501 (2009) by J. Yepez, G. Vahala, L.Vahala and M. Soe, arXiv:0905.0159] is an artifact stemming from the definition of the kinetic energy spectra and is thus not directly related to a Kelvin wave cascade. We also clarify a confusion about the wavenumber intervals on which Kolmogorov and Kelvin wave cascades are expected to take place.Comment: submitted to PR

Turbulence in the two-dimensional Fourier-truncated Gross-Pitaevskii equation

We undertake a systematic, direct numerical simulation (DNS) of the two-dimensional, Fourier-truncated, Gross-Pitaevskii equation to study the turbulent evolutions of its solutions for a variety of initial conditions and a wide range of parameters. We find that the time evolution of this system can be classified into four regimes with qualitatively different statistical properties. First, there are transients that depend on the initial conditions. In the second regime, power-law scaling regions, in the energy and the occupation-number spectra, appear and start to develop; the exponents of these power-laws and the extents of the scaling regions change with time and depended on the initial condition. In the third regime, the spectra drop rapidly for modes with wave numbers $k > k_c$ and partial thermalization takes place for modes with $k < k_c$; the self-truncation wave number $k_c(t)$ depends on the initial conditions and it grows either as a power of $t$ or as $\log t$. Finally, in the fourth regime, complete-thermalization is achieved and, if we account for finite-size effects carefully, correlation functions and spectra are consistent with their nontrivial Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless forms.Comment: 30 pages, 12 figure

Particles and Fields in Superfluids: Insights from the Two-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii Equation

We carry out extensive direct numerical simulations (DNSs) to investigate the interaction of active particles and fields in the two-dimensional (2D) Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) superfluid, in both simple and turbulent flows. The particles are active in the sense that they affect the superfluid even as they are affected by it. We tune the mass of the particles, which is an important control parameter. At the one-particle level, we show how light, neutral, and heavy particles move in the superfluid, when a constant external force acts on them; in particular, beyond a critical velocity, at which a vortex-antivortex pair is emitted, particle motion can be periodic or chaotic. We demonstrate that the interaction of a particle with vortices leads to dynamics that depends sensitively on the particle characteristics. We also demonstrate that assemblies of particles and vortices can have rich, and often turbulent spatiotemporal evolution. In particular, we consider the dynamics of the following illustrative initial configurations: (a) one particle placed in front of a translating vortex-antivortex pair; (b) two particles placed in front of a translating vortex-antivortex pair; (c) a single particle moving in the presence of counter-rotating vortex clusters; and (d) four particles in the presence of counter-rotating vortex clusters. We compare our work with earlier studies and examine its implications for recent experimental studies in superfluid Helium and Bose-Einstein condensates.Comment: 24 figure