Quantum vortex dynamics in two-dimensional neutral superfluids

Abstract

We derive an effective action for the vortex position degree-of-freedom in a superfluid by integrating out condensate phase and density fluctuation environmental modes. When the quantum dynamics of environmental fluctuations is neglected, we confirm the occurrence of the vortex Magnus force and obtain an expression for the vortex mass. We find that this adiabatic approximation is valid only when the superfluid droplet radius $R$, or the typical distance between vortices, is very much larger than the coherence length $\xi$. We go beyond the adiabatic approximation numerically, accounting for the quantum dynamics of environmental modes and capturing their dissipative coupling to condensate dynamics. For the case of an optical-lattice superfluid we demonstrate that vortex motion damping can be adjusted by tuning the ratio between the tunneling energy $J$ and the on-site interaction energy $U$. We comment on the possibility of realizing vortex Landau level physics.