Turbulence in Quantum Gases: Vortices, Waves, and Cascades
Abstract
We review turbulence in ultracold quantum gases, using the scalar contact-interaction Bose-Einstein condensate as the reference system for quantized circulation, compressibility, vortices, sound, and cascades. We focus on the quantitative diagnostics that connect helium and classical phenomenology to microscopic wave-function dynamics: incompressible and compressible kinetic-energy spectra, wave-occupation spectra, spectral fluxes, vortex-resolved correlations, and velocity statistics. These diagnostics distinguish equilibrium vortex organization, decaying turbulent relaxation, forced cascade dynamics, and weak-wave turbulence, and show why power laws alone are insufficient evidence for a cascade. We survey experiments on two-dimensional Onsager clustering, three-dimensional vortex-line turbulence, box-trap wave cascades, engineered dissipation, and turbulent equations of state. We close by briefly placing the contact-interaction scalar superfluid system in a broader landscape of nonlocal, multicomponent, fermionic, and driven-dissipative quantum fluids, where turbulence concepts can be tested for universality.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2607.22244,
title = {Turbulence in Quantum Gases: Vortices, Waves, and Cascades},
author = {Ashton S. Bradley and Tyler W. Neely and Xiaoquan Yu and Brian P. Anderson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.22244},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
This preprint will appear as a chapter in the Springer book entitled Short and Long Range Quantum Atomic Platforms - Theoretical and Experimental Developments (provisional title), edited by P. G. Kevrekidis, C. L. Hung, and S. I. Mistakidis