Dual Gauge Theory for Two Dimensional Superfluid Turbulence

Abstract

We describe turbulent hydrodynamics of superfluids in two spatial dimensions via the dynamics of point-like vortices coupled to an emergent 2+1 dimensional $U(1)$ gauge field. The cascade of superfluid kinetic energy is equivalently described by a cascade of dual electric field energies. We study superfluid turbulence using the equations of motion of the dual gauge theory in the presence of a drive and dissipation. In the limit that the vortices are point-like, the dual equations of motion directly yield the hydrodynamical equations of the superfluid. We obtain a turbulent cascade consistent with Kolmogorov's scaling law for two dimensional fluid turbulence. We observe clustering of like-signed vortices and compute the kinetic energy flux to show that the turbulent regime exhibits an inverse energy cascade.