Vortices with spontaneously broken axisymmetry in 3He-B

This paper reports the discovery of a new breaking of symmetry of the quantized vortex lines in superfluid 3He-B: Vortices with broken axisymmetry are found energetically more favorable than any of the axisymmetric ones in the weak-coupling limit. Based on our extensive numerical minimization of the vortex free-energy functional, we identify the vortices occurring in rotating 3He-B at low pressures as v vortices having: in addition to broken space parity P: also broken axisymmetry Q with the nonaxisymmetry quantum number Vertical BarQVertical Bar = 2, and with superfluid core in the axiplanar state