Anomalous Doppler effect in superfluid and supersolid atomic gases

Abstract

We investigate the Doppler effect at zero temperature in superfluids with broken Galilean invariance and hosting permanent currents, with special focus on atomic gas platforms. We consider the case when Galilean invariance is broken explicitly (by an external periodic potential) or spontaneously, as it happens in a supersolid. In the first case, the presence of a stationary current affects the propagation of sound (fourth sound) via an anomalous Doppler term proportional to the density derivative of the superfluid fraction. In supersolids, where, according to Goldstone theorem, distinct sounds of hybrid superfluid and crystal nature can propagate, the Doppler effect can be very different for each sound, including the possibility of being negative for the lower phonon branch. We obtain analytical predictions within the hydrodynamic theories for superfluids and supersolids, which are compared with the numerical results of time-dependent simulations for weakly interacting atomic Bose-Einstein condensates.