Seminar: ‘Collective vortex dynamics in strongly coupled superfluids’

Abstract: Vorticity appears across a wide range of fluid phenomena, from the dynamics of classical fluids to quantum vortices in superfluids. In the latter case, vortices are topological defects that interact both with each other and with the surrounding medium. When a large number of vortices are present, it is natural to ask whether their collective behaviour can itself be described as a fluid, captured by an effective theory of vortex hydrodynamics. In this talk, I will explore the dynamics of many vortices in a strongly coupled superfluid with holography. By performing real-time simulations, I will investigate how the system approaches equilibrium and how its macroscopic behaviour compares with the predictions of vortex hydrodynamics. This allows to assess the range of validity of the hydrodynamic description and to understand how the system behaves beyond it.