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Momentum creation by vortices in superfluid 3He as a model of primordial baryogenesis

Nature volume 386, pages 689–692 (1997)Cite this article

Abstract

The Universe contains much more matter than antimatter, which is probably the result of processes in the early Universe in which baryon number was not conserved. These processes may have occurred during the electroweak phase transition, when elementary particles first acquired mass1–4. It is impossible to study directly processes relevant to the early Universe, because of the extreme energies involved. One is therefore forced to investigate laboratory systems with analogous phase transitions. Much of the behaviour of superfluid 3He is analogous to that predicted within the standard model of the electroweak interaction5. Superfluids and liquid crystals have already been used to investigate cosmic string production6–11; here we describe experiments on 3He that demonstrate the creation of excitation momentum (which we call momentogenesis) by quantized vortices in the superfluid. The underlying physics of this process is similar to that associated with the creation of baryons within cosmic strings, and our results provide quantitative support for this type of baryogenesis.

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Author notes

  1. A. J. Manninen

    Present address: Physics Department, University of Jyväskylä, PO Box 35, 40351, Jyväskylä, Finland

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Schuster Laboratory, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK

    T. D. C. Bevan, A. J. Manninen, J. B. Cook, J. R. Hook & H. E. Hall

  2. Physics Department, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, 44106, USA

    T. Vachaspati

  3. Low Temperature Laboratory, Helsinki University of Technology, 02150, Espoo, Finland

    G. E. Volovik

  4. Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, 117334, Moscow, Russia

    G. E. Volovik

Authors
  1. T. D. C. Bevan
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  4. J. R. Hook
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  6. T. Vachaspati
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  7. G. E. Volovik
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Bevan, T., Manninen, A., Cook, J. et al. Momentum creation by vortices in superfluid 3He as a model of primordial baryogenesis. Nature 386, 689–692 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/386689a0

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