Scientists studying a mysterious form of matter known as superfluid helium have made a groundbreaking discovery about how tiny whirlpools—called quantum vortices—behave.
Their research uncovered a universal law that explains how these vortices interact, separate, and create turbulence.
Surprisingly, this new understanding also helps explain how regular fluids like air and water behave, potentially impacting future engineering, technology, and weather forecasting.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was led by researchers from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, in collaboration with institutions in the UK, France, and Italy.
Superfluid helium is an exotic substance that forms at temperatures close to absolute zero.
At that point, it flows without resistance—climbing walls, slipping through microscopic cracks, and moving in ways that defy normal physics.
Instead of swirling like regular fluids, its movement is limited to quantum vortices—tiny, perfectly stable tornadoes that carry a fixed amount of rotation, as dictated by quantum mechanics.
“These vortices are like microscopic tornadoes,” said Professor Wei Guo, a co-author of the study. “They’re incredibly stable and easier to track than whirlpools in everyday fluids, which makes them excellent for studying one of the most chaotic things in physics: turbulence.”
Turbulence is the unpredictable, often violent movement seen in everything from ocean waves to airplane wakes.
It’s a difficult problem to fully understand, but by examining quantum vortices in superfluid helium, researchers can observe the phenomenon with far more precision.
The team injected tiny frozen particles of deuterium (a form of hydrogen) into the superfluid helium to make the invisible vortices visible. Using a laser and a high-speed camera, they recorded how these vortices collided and then moved apart.
Their high-resolution imaging and computer simulations revealed that after two vortices connect and split apart, they always move away from each other faster than they approached.
This surprising one-way behavior, known as time-asymmetry, helps explain how energy flows and spreads in all types of fluids.
Each reconnection sent out bursts of energy that rippled through the surrounding fluid, like a heartbeat sending shockwaves through water. When many of these reconnections happen together, they form a special type of quantum turbulence with patterns never seen in ordinary fluids.
Understanding how energy moves in these collisions could one day help engineers design better engines, improve weather forecasting, or make energy systems more efficient. Although quantum vortices only exist in extreme conditions, the laws they follow appear to apply everywhere.
“By studying these clean, controlled quantum systems, we can learn a lot about the messy real world,” said postdoctoral researcher Yiming Xing.
This research opens up new paths to exploring the shared physics of the quantum and classical worlds.
