Probing "cosmological" defects in superfluid 3He-B with a vibrating-wire resonator.

We report on the observation of an anomalously high damping measured by a vibrating-wire resonator (VWR) immersed into superfluid at ultralow temperatures. The observed dissipation is orders of magnitude above that corresponding to friction with the dilute normal fraction and superfluid vortices. A clear pinning behavior is also observed, as well as a strong magnetic field dependence. Our analysis points to the interaction of the VWR with a planar topological defect, analogue to cosmological vacua defects, as proposed by Salomaa and Volovik.