Environment-limited transfer of angular momentum in Bose liquids

Abstract

Impurity motion in a many-body environment has been a central issue in the field of low-temperature physics for decades. In bosonic quantum fluids, the onset of a drag force experienced by point-like objects is due to collective environment excitations, driven by the exchange of linear momentum between the impurity and the many-body bath. In this work we consider a rotating impurity, with the aim of exploring how angular momentum is exchanged with the surrounding bosonic environment. In order to elucidate these issues, we employ a quasiparticle approach based on the angulon theory, which allows us to effectively deal with the non-trivial algebra of quantized angular momentum in the presence of a many-body environment. We uncover how impurity dressing by environmental excitations can establish an exchange channel, whose effectiveness crucially depends on the initial state of the impurity. Remarkably, we find that there is a critical value of initial angular momentum, above which this channel effectively freezes.