A New Interpretation of Oscillating Flow Experiments in Superfluid Helium II

We consider some classic experimental data from oscillating superfluid helium II flows and reinterpret them in terms of our recent results on superfluid vortices in helium II boundary layer flows. We find evidence that the lowest critical velocity in these experiments is due to a boundary layer effect. We show that the critical velocities measured in the oscillating disk experiments agree well with the critical velocities for the existence of stable stationary superfluid vortices in the boundary layer flow.