English

First observation of bright solitons in bulk superfluid He-4

Other Condensed Matter 2018-01-24 v2

Abstract

The existence of bright solitons in bulk superfluid He-4 is demonstrated by time-resolved shadowgraph i maging experiments and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The initial liquid compression that leads to the creation of non-linear waves is produced by rapidly expanding plasma from laser ablation. Af ter the leading dissipative period, these waves transform into bright solitons, which exhibit three chara cteristic features: dispersionless propagation, negligible interaction in two-wave collision, and direct dependence between soliton amplitude and the propagation velocity. The experimental observations are supp orted by DFT calculations, which show rapid evolution of the initially compressed liquid into bright soli tons. At high amplitudes, solitons become unstable and break down into dispersive shock waves.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1711.03756,
  title  = {First observation of bright solitons in bulk superfluid He-4},
  author = {Francesco Ancilotto and David Levy and Jessica Pimentel and Jussi Eloranta},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1711.03756},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

5 pages, 6 figures (accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Lett.)