Superfluid kinetic equation approach to the dynamics of theHe3A-Bphase boundary

Abstract

The dynamics of the A-B phase boundary is studied using a nonequilibrium theory inspired by the microscopic approach to flux flow in type-II superconductors, namely a generalized two-fluid model consisting of coupled dynamical equations for the superfluid order parameter and the quasiparticle fluid. The interface mobility is obtained to lowest order in the front velocity in three different dynamical regimes: the gapless, hydrodynamic, and ballistic. Experiments have so far only been performed in the ballistic regime, and in this regime we find that, if only Andreev scattering processes are accounted for in the interface mobility, then the theoretical predictions for the terminal velocity of the planar interface are too big by a factor ∼2. From this we conclude that there may be other important contributions to the interface mobility in the ballistic regime, and we discuss a few possibilities.