ABSTRACT

The wave propagation might be appropriately called quasi-particle sound, since in the long wave-length limit the only density fluctuations of importance are those produced by exciting a single quasi-particle from the condensate. Quasi-particle sound has essentially the same physical origin as zero sound in a Fermi liquid. The quasi-particle sound velocity will be temperature dependent, since the energy of a given quasi-particle depends on the thermal excitation of other quasi-particles. Superfluid hydrodynamics is richer than its Fermi liquid counterpart because one can have relative motion of the thermal quasi-particles and the condensate. This chapter describes the propagation of first and second sound in the hydrodynamic limit and then go on to a consideration of quasi-particle sound in the collisionless regime. A wide variety of irreversible phenomena which have as their physical origin collisions between the thermally-excited quasi-particles.