Revisiting the Landau criterion: a hydrodynamic and holographic approach to superfluid instabilities

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Sottovia, Filippo
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Sottovia, Filippo
author_facet Sottovia, Filippo
contents In this thesis we investigate the instabilities of superfluids at finite superflow by means of a hydrodynamical approach. We find that at a finite value of the background superfluid velocity a hydrodynamic collective mode crosses to the upper half complex frequency plane, thereby signalling a dynamical instability. At the same time, however, this instability is also thermodynamic, as its onset is controlled by one of the second derivatives of the free energy changing sign. We carry out our analysis in two main setups: the "probe limit", where the fluctuations of the temperature and the normal fluid's velocity are frozen, and a complete approach, which includes them. In both cases we test our results with the help of gauge-gravity duality, finding good agreement between the hydrodynamic modes of the boundary theory and the quasinormal modes of the gravity theory. Our criterion for the onset of the instability, which is formulated in a model-independent way, applies to interacting systems irrespective of the strength of interactions, does not rely on boost invariance and does not assume any specific quantum statistics. As a final check, we also show that it yields the Landau critical velocity for Galilean superfluids with Bose-Einstein quasiparticles.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_04275
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Revisiting the Landau criterion: a hydrodynamic and holographic approach to superfluid instabilities
Sottovia, Filippo
High Energy Physics - Theory
Quantum Gases
Superconductivity
In this thesis we investigate the instabilities of superfluids at finite superflow by means of a hydrodynamical approach. We find that at a finite value of the background superfluid velocity a hydrodynamic collective mode crosses to the upper half complex frequency plane, thereby signalling a dynamical instability. At the same time, however, this instability is also thermodynamic, as its onset is controlled by one of the second derivatives of the free energy changing sign. We carry out our analysis in two main setups: the "probe limit", where the fluctuations of the temperature and the normal fluid's velocity are frozen, and a complete approach, which includes them. In both cases we test our results with the help of gauge-gravity duality, finding good agreement between the hydrodynamic modes of the boundary theory and the quasinormal modes of the gravity theory. Our criterion for the onset of the instability, which is formulated in a model-independent way, applies to interacting systems irrespective of the strength of interactions, does not rely on boost invariance and does not assume any specific quantum statistics. As a final check, we also show that it yields the Landau critical velocity for Galilean superfluids with Bose-Einstein quasiparticles.
title Revisiting the Landau criterion: a hydrodynamic and holographic approach to superfluid instabilities
topic High Energy Physics - Theory
Quantum Gases
Superconductivity
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.04275