Half-quantum vortices in strongly correlated Bose liquids.

Half-quantum vortices in strongly correlated Bose liquids. Abstract We discuss the structure of a vortex in a superfluid Bose liquid with a suppressed Bose-Einstein condensate and an intensive pair correlated condensate. The vortex represents the pair of half-quantum vortices topologically confined by the soliton. In strongly interacting and strongly correlated Bose liquid – su-perfluid 4 He – the density of the Bose-condensate is small compared to the total mass density of the liquid, ρ 0 ≪ ρ. This fact leads to speculations that the rest part of the liquid can be described in terms of the Cooper-like pair-correlated condensate (the most recent discussion of this idea is in Ref. [1]; references to the older papers can be found in [2]). We would like to point out that if this idea is correct, it must have a pronounced effect on the core structure of the elementary vortex, which must be non-axisymmetric. Let us accept that the Cooper-like pair condensate is dominating and gives the dominating contribution to the superfluid density. Then the phenomenological free energy describing interacting pair