Apparently superluminal superfluids
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13130_2024_Article_22589.pdf
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Author(s)
Kourkoulou, Ioanna
Landry, Michael J.
Nicolis, Alberto
Parmentier, Klaas
Date Issued
January 16, 2024
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Citation
Journal of High Energy Physics. 2024 Jan 16;2024(1):80
Version
Final published version
Abstract
We consider the superfluid phase of a specific renormalizable relativistic quantum field theory. We prove that, within the regime of validity of perturbation theory and of the superfluid effective theory, there are consistent and regular vortex solutions where the superfluid’s velocity field as traditionally defined smoothly interpolates between zero and arbitrarily large superluminal values. We show that this solution is free of instabilities and of superluminal excitations. We show that, in contrast, a generic vortex solution for an ordinary fluid does develop an instability if the velocity field becomes superluminal. All this questions the characterization of a superfluid velocity field as the actual velocity of “something”.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Theoretical Physics
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP01(2024)080
