Vortex loops cascade as a channel of quantum turbulence decay

Abstract

We demonstrate that a single reconnection of two quantum vortices can lead to the creation of a cascade of vortex rings. Our analysis, motivated by the analytical results in localized induction approximation, involved high resolution Biot-Savart and Gross-Pitaevskii simulations. The latter showed that the rings cascade starts on the atomic scale, with rings diameters orders of magnitude smaller than the characteristic line spacing in the tangle, and thus capable of penetrating the tangle and annihilating on the boundaries. That way such process can be an efficient decay mechanism for sparse or moderately dense vortex tangle at very low temperatures.