Kelvin-wave cascade and dissipation in low-temperature superfluid vortices

Abstract

We study the statistical properties of the Kelvin waves propagating along quantized superfluid vortices driven by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. No artificial forcing or dissipation is added. Vortex positions are accurately tracked. This procedure directly allows us to obtain the Kevin-wave occupation-number spectrum. Numerical data obtained from long time integration and ensemble average over initial conditions support the spectrum proposed in L'vov and Nazarenko. Kelvin-wave modes in the inertial range are found to be Gaussian as expected by weak-turbulence predictions. Finally the dissipative range of the Kelvin-wave spectrum is studied. Strong non-Gaussian fluctuations are observed in this range. © 2012 American Physical Society.