Microscopic Origins of the Hess-Fairbank Effect and its Consistency with the Second Law of Thermodynamics

The history of applying kinetic theory to help us understand superfluid and BEC phenomena is a long and storied one, going back to the work of Landau and Khalatnikov [1]. Further developments were made using quantum field theoretic [2] and quantum optical methods [3]. We use these methods to study the nonequilibrium physics of Bose condensation and superfluid formation in a rotating quantum fluid. In particular, we examine the quantization of angular velocity observed at low rotational speeds, i.e. the Hess-Fairbank effect. We present results relating the transfer of atoms into a condensate or superfluid mode (at rest in the lab frame) to the overall generation of entropy, taking the rotating container of the fluid itself into account. Finally, we attempt to relate these results to the phenomenon of flux expulsion from a bulk superconductor, in light of recent critical papers on this topic [4].

[1] Landau, L.D. and Khalatnikov, I.M. (1949), Zh. Eskp. Teor. Fiz. 19, 637
[2] Griffin, A., Nikuni, T., and Zaremba, E. (2009), Bose-Condensed Gases at Finite Temperatures, Cambridge
[3] M.O. Scully (1999), Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 3927
[4] J.E. Hirsch (2017), Phys. Rev. B 95, 014503