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SUPERFLUID HELIUM

Visualization of quantized vortices

Nature volume 441, page 588 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

When liquid helium is cooled to below its phase transition at 2.172 K, vortices appear with cores that are only ångströms in diameter, about which the fluid circulates with quantized angular momentum1. Here we generate small particles of solid hydrogen that can be used to image the cores of quantized vortices in their three-dimensional environment of liquid helium. This technique enables the geometry and interactions of these vortices to be observed directly.

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Figure 1: Quantized vortex cores in liquid helium.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics, Institute for Physical Sciences and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, 20742, Maryland, USA

    Gregory P. Bewley, Daniel P. Lathrop & Katepalli R. Sreenivasan

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, 06520, Connecticut, USA

    Gregory P. Bewley

  3. International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, 34014, Italy

    Katepalli R. Sreenivasan

Authors
  1. Gregory P. Bewley
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  2. Daniel P. Lathrop
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  3. Katepalli R. Sreenivasan
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Bewley, G., Lathrop, D. & Sreenivasan, K. Visualization of quantized vortices. Nature 441, 588 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/441588a

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