We give a brief summary of some results that are to appear elsewhere. We ha
ve studied a vortex-related mechanism for the non-vanishing thermal resista
nce well below the bulk: lambda point of liquid He-4 confined in a long cyl
inder. Here we outline the main concept of the proposed physical mechanism.
It involves the non-equilibrium distribution of vortices in the steady sta
te when a small heat current flows along the cylinder axis. We have found t
hat the probability of the saddle-point vortex: configuration, which depend
s exponentially on the length of the vortex, scaled in units of the superfl
uid correlation length, is the dominant factor in the thermal resistance.