The Vortex-Particle Magnus Effect

Abstract: Experimentalists use particles as tracers in liquid helium. The intrusive effects of particles on the dynamics of vortices remain poorly understood. We implement a study of how basic well understood vortex states, such as a propagating pair of oppositely signed vortices, change in the presence of particles by using a simple model based on the Magnus force. We focus on the 2D case, and compare the analytic and semi-analytic model with simulations of the Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equation with particles modelled by dynamic external potentials. The results confirm that the Magnus force model is an effective way to approximate vortex-particle motion either with closed-form simplified solutions or with a more accurate numerically solvable ordinary differential equations (ODEs). Furthermore, we increase the complexity of the vortex states and show that the suggested semi-analytical model remains robust in capturing the dynamics observed in the GP simulations.