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Dynamical Friction in Superfluids

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arxiv 1905.09297 v1 pith:ZYUQSGBH submitted 2019-05-22 hep-ph astro-ph.GAgr-qchep-th

Dynamical Friction in Superfluids

classification hep-ph astro-ph.GAgr-qchep-th
keywords dynamicalfluidfrictionperturbermovingsubsonicenergyinstability
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
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We compute the dynamical friction on a small perturber moving through an inviscid fluid, i.e., a superfluid. Crucially, we account for the tachyonic gravitational mass for sound waves, reminiscent of the Jeans instability of the fluid, which results in non-zero dynamical friction even for subsonic velocities. Moreover, we illustrate that the standard leading order effective theory in the derivative expansion is in general inadequate for analysing supersonic processes. We show this in two ways: (i) with a fluid treatment, where we solve the linearized hydrodynamical equations coupled to Newtonian gravity; and (ii) with a quasiparticle description, where we study the energy dissipation of a moving perturber due to phonon radiation. Ordinarily a subsonic perturber moving through a superfluid is kinematically prohibited from losing energy, however the Jeans instability modifies the dispersion relation of the fluid which can result in a small but non-vanishing dynamical friction force. We also analyse the soft phonon bremsstrahlung by a subsonic perturber scattered off an external field.

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Cited by 6 Pith papers

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