Is Quantized Vorticity in Pure He II at Low Temperature Directly Related to Cavitation and Spinodal Pressure?

We argue that the critical velocity for intrinsic nucleation of quantized vortices in isothermal flow of He II at low temperature can be viewed as approaching the spinodal limit in pressure and breakdown of superfluidity as a consequence of the Bernoulli equation. Breaking the liquid by cavitation that changes the topology from simply to multiply connected seems an essential requirement for intrinsic vortex nucleation and serves as an additional criterion of superfluidity, of the form Vc = [2(pext − psp)/ρs]1/2, where pext is the external pressure, psp denotes the spinodal limit, and ρs stands for the superfluid density. This criterion can be viewed as additional to the well‐known Landau criterion for breakdown of superfluidity due to emission of quasiparticles.We argue that the critical velocity for intrinsic nucleation of quantized vortices in isothermal flow of He II at low temperature can be viewed as approaching the spinodal limit in pressure and breakdown of superfluidity as a consequence of the Bernoulli equation. Breaking the liquid by cavitation that changes the topology from simply to multiply connected seems an essential requirement for intrinsic vortex nucleation and serves as an additional criterion of superfluidity, of the form Vc = [2(pext − psp)/ρs]1/2, where pext is the external pressure, psp denotes the spinodal limit, and ρs stands for the superfluid density. This criterion can be viewed as additional to the well‐known Landau criterion for breakdown of superfluidity due to emission of quasiparticles.