Talk-Polywell.org

Solving a physics mystery: Those ‘solitons’ are really vortex rings

An example of a vortex ring, also called a toroidal bubble, which dolphins create under water. The concept of vortex rings lies at the heart of new University of Washington physics research.
The same physics that gives tornadoes their ferocious stability lies at the heart of new University of Washington research, and could lead to a better understanding of nuclear dynamics in studying fission, superconductors and the workings of neutron stars.
The work seeks to clarify what Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers witnessed when in 2013 they named a mysterious phenomenon — an unusual long-lived wave traveling much more slowly than expected through a gas of cold atoms. They called this wave a “heavy soliton” and claimed it defied theoretical description.
But in one of the largest supercomputing calculations ever performed, UW physicists Aurel Bulgac and Michael Forbes and co-authors have found this to be a case of mistaken identity: The heavy solitons observed in the earlier experiment are likely vortex rings – a sort of quantum equivalent of smoke rings.

choff wrote:How would those compare to a spheromak/spinning toroidal plasma?