Swimming against a superfluid flow: Self-propulsion via vortex-antivortex shedding in a quantum fluid of light

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09028v1
• Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2025 19:00:02 GMT
• Title: Swimming against a superfluid flow: Self-propulsion via vortex-antivortex shedding in a quantum fluid of light
• Authors: Myrann Baker-Rasooli, Tangui Aladjidi, Tiago D. Ferreira, Alberto Bramati, Mathias Albert, Pierre-Élie Larré, Quentin Glorieux,
• Abstract summary: We show that a finite-mass, mobile impurity immersed in a flowing two-dimensional paraxial superfluid can recoil against the superfluid current.<n>This self-propulsion is achieved by the periodic emission of quantized vortex-antivortex pairs downstream.<n>Our findings establish a fundamental link between internal-energy dissipation in quantum fluids and concepts of self-propulsion in active-matter systems.
• Score: 0.0
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: A superfluid flows without friction below a critical velocity, exhibiting zero drag force on impurities. Above this threshold, superfluidity breaks down, and the internal energy is redistributed into incoherent excitations such as vortices. We demonstrate that a finite-mass, mobile impurity immersed in a flowing two-dimensional paraxial superfluid of light can \textit{swim} against the superfluid current when this critical velocity is exceeded. This self-propulsion is achieved by the periodic emission of quantized vortex-antivortex pairs downstream, which impart an upstream recoil momentum that results in a net propulsive force. Analogous to biological systems that minimize effort by exploiting wake turbulence, the impurity harnesses this vortex backreaction as a passive mechanism of locomotion. Reducing the impurity dynamics to the motion of its center of mass and using a point-vortex model, we quantitatively describe how this mechanism depends on the impurity geometry and the surrounding flow velocity. Our findings establish a fundamental link between internal-energy dissipation in quantum fluids and concepts of self-propulsion in active-matter systems, and opens new possibilities for exploiting vortices for controlled quantum transport at the microscale.

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