Evolution of a superfluid vortex filament tangle driven by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation.

Abstract

The development and decay of a turbulent vortex tangle driven by the Gross-Pitaevskii equation is studied. Using a recently developed accurate and robust tracking algorithm, all quantized vortices are extracted from the fields. The Vinen's decay law for the total vortex length with a coefficient that is in quantitative agreement with the values measured in helium II is observed. The topology of the tangle is then investigated showing that linked rings may appear during the evolution. The tracking also allows for determining the statistics of small-scale quantities of vortex lines, exhibiting large fluctuations of curvature and torsion. Finally, the temporal evolution of the Kelvin wave spectrum is obtained providing evidence of the development of a weak-wave turbulence cascade.