Evaporation of a packet of quantized vorticity

Abstract

A recent experiment has confirmed the existence of quantized turbulence in superfluid He3-B and suggested that turbulence is inhomogenous and spreads away from the region around the vibrating wire where it is created. To interpret the experiment we study numerically the diffusion of a packet of quantized vortex lines which is initially confined inside a small region of space. We find that reconnections fragment the packet into a gas of small vortex loops which fly away. We determine the time scale of the process and find that it is in order of magnitude agreement with the experiment.