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by OldGuyInTheClub 1063 days ago
Liquid helium 3 and 4 have been a fertile substrate for this kind of exploration. I often think that the lab scale experiments will figure it out before the ultracolliders.

This 1998 article summarizes the state of the field up to that time. The rotating cryostat they used in the experiments is a masterpiece of instrument design.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.96.14.7760

"Vortices in rotating superfluid 3 He" by Lounasmaa and Thuneberg

Scroll to the end for

"Superfluid 3 He in Cosmology

The topological objects in the order parameter field of super- fluid 3 He, such as textural point defects, quantized vortex lines, and solitons, are in many respects similar to monopoles, strings, and domain walls in relativistic quantum field theories (3, 4, 23, 24). In high-energy physics these objects are still hypothetical, whereas in the case of superfluid 3 He they can be observed experimentally. Here we discuss just one example: an experiment modeling developments in the early universe. The study (67, 68) involves creation of vortices by absorption of neutrons in rotating superfluid 3 He-B."

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Addendum after the edit deadline: G.E. Volovik has an article on the theory behind this at

https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.96.11.6042

"Field theory in superfluid 3He: What are the lessons for particle physics, gravity, and high-temperature superconductivity?"

I don't pretend to understand even a fraction of this but Figure 3 is a very nice Dictionary mapping the helium phenomena to the cosmological questions.