Quantized Vortex Reconnection: Fixed Points and Initial Conditions

Quantized vortices are phase singularities in complex fields. In superfluids, they appear as mobile interacting defects that may cross and reconnect by exchanging tails. Reconnection is a topology-changing event that allows vortex tangles to decay; it is a defining signature of quantum turbulence. We report a family of fixed points (i.e., stationary solutions), including planar forms, that capture reconnection in the Gross-Pitaevskii model in contrast to previous suggestions of pyramidal structures. These are obtained using a well known, systematic method for generating low-energy relaxed initial conditions for Gross-Pitaevskii simulations.