Vortices with spontaneously broken axisymmetry in 3B

This paper reports the discovery of a new breaking of symmetry of the quantized vortex lines in superfluid ³B: 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 ³B at low pressures as v vortices having-in addition to broken space parity P-also broken axisymmetry Q with the nonaxisymmetry quantum number ||Q||=2, and with superfluid core in the axiplanar state.