Spin superfluidity and coherent spin precession

The spontaneous phase coherent precession of the magnetization in superfluid 3He-B was discovered experimentally in 1984 at the Institute for Physical Problems, Moscow by Borovik-Romanov, Bunkov, Dmitriev and Mukharsky and simultaneously explained theoretically by Fomin (Institut Landau, Moscow). Its formation is a direct manifestation of spin superfluidity. The latter is the magnetic counterpart of mass superfluidity and superconductivity. It is also an example of the Bose-Einstein condensation of spin-wave excitations (magnons). The coherent spin precession opened the way for investigations of spin supercurrent magnetization transport and other related phenomena, such as spin-current Josephson effect, process of phase slippage at a critical value of spin supercurrent, spin-current vortices, non-topological solitons (analogous to Q-balls in high energy physics) etc. New measuring techniques based on coherent spin precession made the investigation of mass counterflow and mass vortices possible owing to the spin-mass interaction. New phenomena were observed: mass-spin vortices, the Goldstone mode of the mass vortex with non-axisymmetric core, superfluid density anisotropy etc. Different types of coherent spin precession were later found in superfluid 3He-A and 3He-B confined in anisotropic aerogel, in the states with counterflow and in 3He with reduced magnetization. Finally, spin superfluidity investigations developed the basis for a modern investigation of electron spin supercurrent and spintronics.