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

Abstract

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.