Quantum vortices

In physics, a quantum vortex represents a quantized flux circulation of some physical quantity. In most cases quantum vortices are a type of topological defect exhibited in superfluids and superconductors. The existence of quantum vortices was predicted by Lars Onsager in 1947 in connection with superfluid helium. Onsager also pointed out that quantum vortices describe the circulation of superfluid and conjectured that their excitations are responsible for superfluid phase transitions. These ideas of Onsager were further developed by Richard Feynman in 1955 and in 1957 were applied to describe the magnetic phase diagram of type-II superconductors by Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov. In 1935 Fritz London published a very closely related work on magnetic flux quantization in superconductors. London's fluxoid can also be viewed as a quantum vortex.

Quantum vortices are observed experimentally in Type-II superconductors, liquid helium, and atomic gases (see Bose–Einstein condensate), as well as in photon fields (optical vortex) and exciton-polariton superfluids.

In a superfluid, a quantum vortex "carries" quantized orbital angular momentum, thus allowing the superfluid to rotate; in a superconductor, the vortex carries quantized magnetic flux.

It is worth mentioning that the term "quantum vortex" is also used in the study of few body problems. Under the De Broglie–Bohm theory, it is possible to derive a "velocity field" from the wave function. In this context, quantum vortices are zeros on the wave function, around which this velocity field has a solenoidal shape, similar to that of irrotational vortex on potential flows of traditional fluid dynamics

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