Realization of a Superleak in a Quantum Gas
Wan-Ling Yang, Shao-Bo Liu, Xiang Luo, Chao Yang, Hai-Lin Li, Yu-Zhou Yang et al. · arXiv: 2610.31185v1 · Summary page
Why cover this story this week?
A valve that selects superfluid motion
A superleak lets the superfluid component of a fluid pass while suppressing its normal component. Researchers now report such a device in an ultracold quantum gas, using an optical superlattice to make the components move on very different timescales. The superfluid travels coherently through Josephson transport, while the normal component responds slowly and is limited by thermodynamics.
The team exploited that contrast to filter out the normal component repeatedly and dynamically purify the superfluid, while maintaining coherent driven oscillations. The selectivity is dynamical rather than an assertion that normal flow is impossible. That distinction makes the system useful beyond a demonstration of frictionless motion: it provides a controllable setting for exploring how transport, coherence and thermodynamics interact.
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