Fluid pinch-off in superfluid and normal 4He

We present frames from high-speed videos of the pinch-off of liquid He-4 droplets. The temperature of the fluid droplets ranged from 1.33 K to 4.8 K, and the size of the drops was proportional to the temperature-dependent capillary length. We observed no qualitative difference between pinch-off in the normal and superfluid states. In both cases, the shape of the fluid in the final stages of pinch-off resembles a cone piercing a sphere, which is typical of other low-viscosity fluids. The evolution of the minimum neck radius r(min) can be characterized by power laws r(min)proportional to tau(n), where tau is the time remaining until pinch-off occurs. In the regime near pinch-off, the data from image analysis are consistent with n=2/3. The data at the beginning of the pinch process when the neck is of the order of the capillary length are also described by n=2/3, but with a different proportionality factor. There is an intermediate crossover regime characterized by n=2/5.