Superfluidity and Stationary Space-Times

Abstract

A connection between superfluidity and gravitation is established for physical stationary gravitational fields. We show that the spinning cosmic string metric describes the gravitational field associated with the single vortex in a superfluid condensate model for space-time outside the vortex core. This metric differs significantly from the usual acoustic metric for the Onsager-Feynman vortex. We also consider the question of what happens when many vortices are present, and show that on large scales a G\"odel-like metric emerges. In both the single and multiple vortex cases the presence of closed time-like curves is attributed to the breakdown of superfluid rigidity.