Superfluid helium reveals a manageable analog to the Schwinger effect. It deepens understanding of vortices and quantum tunneling.
In 1951, physicist Julian Schwinger proposed that applying a constant electric field to a vacuum could cause electron-positron pairs to emerge spontaneously, a process known as quantum tunneling.
Why can’t this matter from nothing idea power Star Trek replicators or transporters? The electric fields required would be extraordinarily large, well beyond the reach of any direct laboratory experiment.
Because of this limitation, the phenomenon, known as the Schwinger effect, has never been directly observed.
Superfluid helium as an experimental analog
Physicists at the University of British Columbia (UBC) have now outlined a related effect in a system that is easier to study. In their approach, a thin layer of superfluid helium replaces the vacuum, while the flowing motion of the superfluid takes the role of the immense electric field.
“Superfluid Helium-4 is a wonder. At a few atomic layers thick, it can be cooled very easily to a temperature where it’s basically in a frictionless vacuum state,” explains Dr. Philip Stamp, a theorist at UBC working on condensed matter and quantum gravity, whose new findings appeared in PNAS on 1 September 2025.
“When we make that frictionless vacuum flow, instead of electron-positron pairs appearing, vortex/anti-vortex pairs will appear spontaneously, spinning in opposite directions to one another.”
Mapping out the theory and experiments
In the paper, Dr. Stamp and UBC colleague Michael Desrochers outline the theory and the mathematics behind it—mapping out a detailed approach to conducting a direct experiment.
Vacuum tunneling is a process of keen interest in quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. In quantum theory, vacuums aren’t empty, they’re filled with fluctuating fields that can lead to the temporary appearance and disappearance of virtual particles.
“We believe the Helium-4 film provides a nice analog to several cosmic phenomena,” adds Dr. Stamp. “The vacuum in deep space, quantum black holes, even the very beginning of the Universe itself. And these are phenomena we can’t ever approach in any direct experimental way.”
Beyond analogs and into superfluid physics
However, Dr. Stamp emphasizes that the real interest of the work may lie less in an analogs – which always have limitations – and more in the way it alters our understanding of superfluids, and of phase transitions in two-dimensional systems.
“These are real physical systems in their own right, not analogs. And we can do experiments on these.”
At the mathematical level, the researchers needed several breakthroughs to make the theory work. For example, previous researchers looking at vortices in superfluids have treated the vortex mass as an unchanging constant. Dr. Stamp and Desrochers showed that this mass will vary dramatically as the vortices move, fundamentally changing our understanding of vortices in both fluids and the early universe.
“It’s exciting to understand how and why the mass varies, and how this affects our understanding of quantum tunnelling processes, which are ubiquitous in physics, chemistry, and biology,” says Desrochers.
Stamp also argues that the same mass variability will occur with electron-positron pairs in the Schwinger effect, thereby modifying Schwinger’s theory, in a kind of ‘revenge of the analog’.
Reference: “Vacuum tunneling of vortices in two-dimensional 4He superfluid films” by M. J. Desrochers, D. J. J. Marchand and P. C. E. Stamp, 2 September 2025, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2421273122
The work was supported by the National Science and Engineering Research Council.
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15 Comments
Something From Nothing – Physicists Mimic the “Impossible” Schwinger Effect.
VERY GOOD!
Something From Nothing is an inaccurate term. The understanding by science and philosophy should be the transition of inviscid, incompressible, and isotropic space through topological phase transitions to spacetime vortices. Space and absolute nothingness are not the same concept. Space is everywhere. In philosophy, absolute nothingness cannot generate anything.
If researchers are interested in space, please visit https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/1917878197971816654.
Regrettably, that would get 0 clicks
VERY GOOD! Something From Nothing.
In today’s physics, the so-called peer-reviewed journals—including Physical Review Letters, PNAS, Nature, Science, and others—stubbornly insist on and promote the following:
1. Even though θ and τ particles exhibit differences in experiments, physics can claim they are the same particle. This is science.
2. Even though topological vortices and antivortices have identical structures and opposite rotational directions, physics can define their structures and directions as entirely different. This is science.
3. Even though two sets of cobalt-60 rotate in opposite directions and experiments reveal asymmetry, physics can still define them as mirror images of each other. This is science.
4. Even though vortex structures are ubiquitous—from cosmic accretion disks to particle spins—physics must insist that vortex structures do not exist and require verification. Only the particles that like God, Demonic, or Angelic are the most fundamental structures of the universe. This is science.
5. Even though everything occupies space and maintains its existence in time, physics must still debate and insist on whether space exists and whether time is a figment of the human mind. This is science.
6. Even though space, with its non-stick, incompressible, and isotropic characteristics, provides a solid foundation for the development of physics, physics must still insist that the ideal fluid properties of space do not exist. This is science.
Please go on.
What are the shames?
We must be acutely aware that while “imagined particles” in science and historical “deification” share superficial similarities, their cores are distinct. The former is a necessary, yet strictly constrained, hypothetical tool in scientific exploration, rooted in the solid ground of falsifiability and logical positivism; the latter is a product of the combination of power and ignorance, inherently anti-critical and anti-falsification. Recognizing this distinction is not only fundamental for scientists but also key to preventing scientific inquiry itself from sliding into a new “deification” myth. The true spirit of science lies in maintaining an eternal thinkings of critique and verification towards all imaginations—including the beautiful imaginations it itself proposes.
Some so-called peer-reviewed publications (including Physical Review Letters, PNAS, Nature, Science) have long been reduced to a product of the combination of power and ignorance.
Would not “analogue” serve better in your article than “analog”? The distinction is subtle but important. Both terms qualify as standard English, but “analogue” is generally preferred where the intent is to denote or imply a kind of near equivalence or, to use its original Greek meaning, a proportional approximation of equivalence. Increasingly, “analog” is used, almost exclusively, to indicate that which is not digital, not at all, I think, what is at the center of this issue.
Thanks for the note. We follow U.S. style, in which analog is the standard spelling in all senses—both for electronics and for the comparative/model meaning (“an analog of…”). The analogue spelling is chiefly British rather than a different meaning.
Tomato, tomato……..A rose by any other name would smell as sweet!
They say “something from nothing” yet there was still an intelligent creator behind even these experiments…
The intelligent beings behind this experiment are observers – not creators – of the events of the experiment. Observing and taking clues from nature is an intelligent way to find out how things work.
The creationists do not try to observe events in nature, but instead make up stories of a creator creating those events. And then they stop asking questions about their fictitious creator (like, how exactly did the creator create the universe?). That’s an unintelligent way to proceed if you want to find out how things really work.
Total monsense
Is it logical to get something from nothing,?? this is like perpetual motion claims where you can get useful energy from nothing…
To summarize, the key to something from nothing is no less than a quantum tunneling. When Helium-4 is quite Super, making that frictionless vacuum flow, ideas just as particles spring forth. Shwing!!
Something from nothing. The experiment was completed in liquid helium.
This analogue is NOT a demonstration of the Schwinger Effect.
Don’t understand much about physics, science or any subject but isn’t using superfluid helium films to generate vortex pairs from a flowing “frictionless vacuum… using something use to create something?… Nah I’ll just stick with that something cannot be created out of nothing….