Dynamics of the vortex line density in superfluids under thermal activation

Abstract

The study explores the development of the vortex line density in superfluids under thermal activation. This problem is of interest to both applied and fundamental research, and has been investigated by many authors in various aspects. Despite the important and impressive results obtained, a significant part of the process, namely the kinetics of processes leading to equilibrium state, remained unexplored. In this article, we conduct a study of kinetic phenomena and focus our attention on the evolution of the vortex line density (VLD) L(t), the total length of the filament per unit volume. The initial development of VLD is due to random thermal fluctuations. The increase in the vortex line length L(t) can be obtained based on the famous Novikov-Furutsu theorem, which shows that the growth rate of L(t) is proportional to a random force correlator. As the length of the vortex filaments increases, the interaction between the vortices becomes significant and affects the dynamics process. At this point, we turn to the phenomenological Feynman-Vinen theory, which offers various models for the evolution of the quantity L(t). Next we examine the evolution of a vortex tangle as a combination of growth due to random thermal excitations and decay in the Feynman-Vinen theory. Several applications leading to significant and remarkable results are considered.