Vortex-mediated relaxation of magnon BEC into light Higgs quasiparticles

S. Autti, P. J. Heikkinen, S. M. Laine, J. T. Mäkinen, E. V. Thuneberg, V. V. Zavjalov, V. B. Eltsov

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Abstract

A magnon Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in superfluid 3He is a fine instrument for studying the surrounding macroscopic quantum system. At zero temperature, the BEC is subject to a few distinct forms of decay into other collective excitations, owing to momentum and energy conservation in a quantum vacuum. We study the vortex-Higgs mechanism: The vortices relax the requirement for momentum conservation, allowing the optical magnons of the BEC to transform into light Higgs quasiparticles. This facilitates a direct measurement of the dimensions of the B-phase double-core vortex, providing experimental access to elusive phenomena, such as the Kelvin wave cascade and core-bound Majorana fermions. Our paper expands the spectrum of possible interactions between magnetic quasiparticles in 3He-B and lays the groundwork for building magnon-based quantum devices.
Original languageEnglish
Article numberL032002
Number of pages6
JournalPhysical Review Research
Volume3
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2 Jul 2021

Keywords

  • magnon quasiparticle excitation
  • topological defect
  • helium-3
  • Bose-Einstein condensates
  • superfluid
  • NMR
  • topological superfluid

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