Trial distribution functional of vortex tangle in superuid helium

Sergey K. Nemirovskii
Institute for Thermophysics, Lavrentyeva,1, 630090 Novosibirsk, Russia

Makoto Tsubota
Department of Physics, Osaka City University, Osaka, Japan

It is widely accepted (see e.g. [1],[2] ) that after exceeding some critical value of velocity the entangled mass of chaotic vortex lament or vortex tangle (VT) appears in superuid component of HeII. The wide class of hydrodynamic phenomena associated with presence of VT is called superuid turbulence. The presence of vortex tangle appearing in the superuid turbulent HeII essentially changes hydrodynamic properties of the latter. To study the according phenomena one needs to evaluate the various averages over the ensemble of chaotic vortex loops on the basis of the appropriate stochastic theory of the chaotic vortex laments. Of course the most honest way to develop such theory is to study stochastic dynamics of vortex laments on the basis of equations of motions with some source of chaos, for instance introducing the Langevin force. However because of extremely involved dynamics of vortex lines this way seems almost hopeless. The master idea of our proposal is to construct a trial distribution function (TDF) in the space of the vortex loops {sj (j )} is of the most general form which satises to properties of the VT, knowing from experiment and numerical simulations. Here sj (j )} the element of the j loop depending on label variable j . We assume that this trial distribution function will enable us to calculate any physical quantities due to the VT. To construct a trial distribution function (TDF) we take that the probability P({sj (j )}) for vortex tangle to have a particular conguration {sj (j )} should be proportional to 1/Nallowed , where Nallowed is the number of allowed congurations, of course innite. Under term allowed congurations Nallowed we mean only the congurations that will lead to the correct values for all average quantities known from experiment and numerical simulations. Formally it can be expressed as a path integral in space of three-dimensional (closed) curves supplemented with some constrains connected to properties of the VT. Nallowed D{sj ()} constraints {sj ()}. (1)

The constraints entering this relation are written via delta functions expressing known properties of the VT, such as full length, anisotropy, mean curvature and polarization. By use of the trick known from the theory of polymer chains, we can relax these rigorous condition and change delta functions by continuous (Gaussian) functions. This procedure performed in [3] leads to the following expression for probability of congurations: 1

P({sj (j )}) = exp

Li Lj i,j 0 0

d d s ( ) (i j )s ( )

(2)

Here ( ) the matrix containing known information about the VT properties. Using distribution (2) we are in position to calculate any quantity depending on vortex lament congurations. Here we present the following results 1. We calculate superuid mass current induced by vortex laments. This additional superuid current directed against the external superuid ow is shown to appear due to nonzero average polarization of the vortex loops. In macroscopic description, in particular in hydrodynamic experiments, the induced superuid current displays itself as a suppression of the superuid density. The temperature dependant relative change of the superuid density s /s turns out to be of several percents. Some experimental consequences such as an additional pressure drop and decreasing of velocity of the second sound propagating in the superuid turbulent HeII are discussed 2.Macroscopic dynamics of the hydrodynamic (Lamb) impulse JV induced by vortex laments in the counterowing superuid turbulent HeII is studied. The rate of change of quantity JV is equal to the force Fsn exerted by the normal component on the vortex tangle. That contradicts an obvious fact that in steady case the quantity JV should have the constant value. Resolving that apparent paradox we draw some conclusions concerning the vortex tangle dynamics. 3.We calculate the energy spectrum E(k) of the 3D random velocity eld, induced by VT. If the VT is assumed to be purely fractal object with Haussdorf dimension HD , the E(k) is a power-like function E(k) k 2+HD . More realistic VT in HeII is semi-fractal object, behaving as smooth line for small separation R ( is the label coordinate, R is mean curvature )and having a random walk structure for large with HD = 2. For that case calculations give that the spectrum E(k) is k-independent for k, smaller than 1/R (but larger then inverse size of the system) and scales as k 1 for larger k. The latter reects that for small scales vortex lament behaves as a smooth line. Our results agree with recent numerical simulation. The work was partly funded by Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Grant N 03-0216179 and by INTAS, Grant N 2001-0618.

References
[1] R.J. Donnelly 1991. Quantized Vortices in Helium II, (Cambridge University Press). [2] S.K.Nemirovskii, W.Fiszdon 1995. Chaotic Quantized Vortices and Hydrodynamic Processes in Superuid Helium, Rev. Mod. Phys. 67 , 37. [3] S.K. Nemirovskii 1997. Gaussian model of vortex tangle in superuid turbulent HeII, Phys. Rev. B57, 5792.