The motion of helium crystals has been experimentally studied when the crystals fall in the superfluid liquid owing to gravity at temperatures above the roughening transitions where the whole crystal surface is in the atomically rough state. The rate of crystal fall at T = 1.25 K is higher than at T = 1.54 K. This is proof of the essential role of the normal component of superfluid helium in the deceleration of crystal motion. The pressure measurements in the container have shown the effect of surface kinetics on the motions of the crystal and its size. The fall of crystals with the low surface mobility at T = 1.54 K does not change the pressure significantly. The high surface mobility at T = 1.25 K results in decreasing the pressure in the container in the course of the fall of a crystal. The pressure drop exceeds the difference in the hydrostatic pressure between the initial and final positions of the crystal. After the stop, the pressure in the container relaxes to the difference mentioned above. This fact demonstrates an additional growth of the crystal in the flow of a superfluid liquid.
We describe interacting mixtures of ultracold bosonic and fermionic atoms in harmonically confined optical lattices. For a suitable choice of parameters we study the emergence of superfluid and Fermi liquid (non-insulating) regions out of Bose-Mott and Fermi-band insulators, due to finite Boson and Fermion hopping. We obtain the shell structure for the system and show that angular momentum can be transferred to the non-insulating regions from Laguerre-Gaussian beams, which combined with Bragg spectroscopy can reveal all superfluid and Fermi liquid shells.
We have carried out a study of the momentum distribution and of the spectrum of elementary excitations of liquid $^4$He across the normal-superfluid transition temperature, using the path integral Monte Carlo method. Our results for the momentum distribution in the superfluid regime show that a kink is present in the range of momenta corresponding to the roton excitation. This effect disappears when crossing the transition temperature to the normal fluid, in a behavior currently unexplained by theory.
The fall of a quantum crystal in the state of "burst-like growth" in a superfluid liquid is considered. The experimental data of the pressure variation in the container during the fall of a crystal are discussed. The model of the motion of the crystal is suggested taking the interface dynamics into account. The results for the numerical simulation of the fall of a crystal are consistent with the experimental data. We find a significant effect of the liquid-crystal interface kinetics on the hydrodynamics of the liquid flow encircling a crystal.
Supersaturated superfluid 3He-4He liquid mixture, separating into the 3He-concentrated c-phase and 3He-diluted d-phase, represents a unique possibility for studying macroscopic quantum nucleation and quantum phase-separation kinetics in binary mixtures at low temperatures down to absolute zero. One of possible heterogeneous mechanisms for the phase separation of supersaturated d-phase is associated with superfluidity of this phase and with a possible existence of quantized vortices playing a role of nucleation sites for the c-phase of liquid mixture. We analyze the growth dynamics of vortex co…
We study the hydrodynamics of quantum 4He crystal oscillations in a superfluid liquid with involving the dynamics of atomically rough surfaces. It is shown that, due to enhancement of the kinetic growth coefficient as the temperature lowers, the reaction force of the liquid applied to the 4He crystal changes its character from the inertial to the viscous one vanishing as T->0. The model is confirmed by the experiments on the oscillations of the 4He crystal within the temperature range 0.54 - 1.43 K at frequencies 484 and 211 Hz. New type of a hydrodynamic instability is found. The instability …
A recent claim of possible superfluid behaviour of parahydrogen films intercalated within a crystalline matrix of Na atoms is examined. Quantum Monte Carlo simulations at finite temperature yield strong numerical evidence that the system forms at low temperature a non-superfluid crystalline phase, commensurate with the underlying impurity lattice. The physics of this system is therefore qualitatively identical to that observed in similar settings, extensively studied in precedence. Comparison of numerical results obtained here, with those of the reference in which the prediction of superfluidi…
The wavelike processes of crystallisation and melting or crystallisation waves are well-known to exist at the crystal 4He surface in its rough state. Below the roughening transition temperature the crystal surface experiences the transition to the smooth faceted state and the crystallisation waves represent the propagation of a train of crystalline steps at the velocity depending on the crystal step height. Here we analyse the transmission and reflection of crystallisation waves propagating across the crystal edge separating the crystal surface in the rough and faceted states.
We report the first observation of superfluid $β$ phase of $^3$He. This phase is realized in $^3$He in nematic aerogel in presence of high magnetic field right below the superfluid transition temperature. We use a vibrating aerogel resonator to detect the transition to the $β$ phase and measure the region of existence of this phase.
We have carried out a microscopic study of the dynamic structure factor of liquid $^4$He across the normal-superfluid transition temperature using the path integral Monte Carlo method. The ill-posed problem of the inverse Laplace transform, from the imaginary-time intermediate scattering function to the dynamic response, is tackled by stochastic optimization. Our results show a quasi-particle peak and a small and broad multiphonon contribution. In spite of the lack of strength in the collective peaks, we clearly identify the rapid dropping of the roton peak amplitude when crossing the transiti…
We report experimental realization of a quantum time quasicrystal, and its transformation to a quantum time crystal. We study Bose-Einstein condensation of magnons, associated with coherent spin precession, created in a flexible trap in superfluid $^3$He-B. Under a periodic drive with an oscillating magnetic field, the coherent spin precession is stabilized at a frequency smaller than that of the drive, demonstrating spontaneous breaking of discrete time translation symmetry. The induced precession frequency is incommensurate with the drive, and hence the obtained state is a time quasicrystal.…
An analysis of experimental data shows that, in addition to phonon--roton excitations in superfluid helium, there necessarily exist at least one branch of elementary excitations whose energy spectrum strongly depends on temperature. On this basis, the Landau superfluidity criterion is generalized for several branches of elementary excitations, taking into account that the critical velocity should vanish during the phase transition of liquid helium from the superfluid state to the normal state. We suppose that a new spectrum of excitations with a gap, depending on interparticle interaction, cor…
A short popular review of theoretical and experimental results about properties of ultracold Fermi gases in vicinity of the Feshbach resonance is presented. The paper is based on the authors talk on the meeting of the Physical Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences dedicated to 100th anniversary of the birth of L. D. Landau (Moscow, January 22, 2008). A version of this article has been published in Physics - Uspekhi v. 51 p. 603 (2008).
The finite temperature phase diagram of two-dimensional dipolar bosons versus dipolar interaction strength is discussed. We identify the stable phases as dipolar superfluid (DSF), dipolar Wigner crystal (DWC), dipolar hexatic fluid (DHF), and dipolar normal fluid (DNF). We also show that other interesting phases like dipolar supersolid (DSS) and dipolar hexatic superfluid (DHSF) are at least metastable, and can potentially be reached by thermal quenching. In particular, for large densities or strong dipolar interactions, we find that the DWC exists at low temperatures, but melts into a DHF at …
We report and discuss the first neutron reflection measurements from the free surface of normal and superfluid 4He and of liquid 3He-4He mixture. In case of liquid 4He the surface roughness is different above and below the lambda transition, being smoother in the superfluid state. For the superfluid, we also observe the formation of a surface layer ~200 A thick which has a subtly different neutron scattering cross-section. The results can be interpreted as an enhancement of Bose-Einstein condensate fraction close to the helium surface. We find that the addition of 3He isotopic impurities leads…
Two different microscopic phases have been observed via inelastic neutron scattering for superfluid helium confined within highly monodisperse, smooth, and unidimensional silica pores. When the helium forms a thin film on the pore walls, it supports a dramatically modified phonon-roton spectrum as well as a 2D surface roton. The energies of these modified phonon-roton modes are consistent with predictions for a dilute, low-density film, while the energy of the 2D surface roton corresponds to that of a dense film. The relatively smooth and weak surface potential of the substrate permits the for…
In this paper we propose a thermodynamically consistent model for superfluid-normal phase transition in liquid helium, accounting for variations of temperature and density. The phase transition is described by means of an order parameter, according to the Ginzburg-Landau theory, emphasizing the analogies between superfluidity and superconductivity. The normal component of the velocity is assumed to be compressible and the usual phase diagram of liquid helium is recovered. Moreover, the continuity equation leads to a dependence between density and temperature in agreement with the experimental …
We have discovered that room temperature liquid metal is capable of penetrating through macro- and microporous materials by applying a voltage. In this work, we demonstrate the liquid metal penetration effect in various porous materials such as tissue paper, thick and fine sponges, fabrics, and meshes. The penetration effect mimics one of the three well-known superfluid properties of liquid helium superfluid that only occur at near-zero Kelvin. The underlying mechanism is that the high surface tension of liquid metal can be significantly reduced to near-zero due to the voltage induced oxidatio…
We analyze the analog of the Rayleigh instability in the field of gravity for the superfluid-crystal 4He interface provided that the heavier 4He crystal phase occupies the half-space over the lighter superfluid phase. The conditions and the onset of the gravitational instability are different in kind above and below the roughening transition temperature when the crystal 4He surface is in the rough or in the smooth faceted state, respectively. In the rough state of the surface the gravitational instability is similar to the classical case of the fluid-fluid interface. In contrast, in the case o…
We studied the thermal conductivity of superfluid $^3$He in a 2.5 mm effective diameter and 0.15 m long channel connecting the two volumes of our experimental assembly. The main volume contained pure solid $^4$He, pure liquid $^3$He and saturated liquid $^3$He-$^4$He mixture at varying proportions, while the separate heat-exchanger volume housed sinter and was filled by liquid $^3$He. The system was cooled externally by a copper nuclear demagnetization stage, and, as an option, internally by the adiabatic melting of solid $^4$He in the main volume. The counterflow effect of superfluid just bel…
One scenario for the non-classical moment of inertia of solid He-4 discovered by Kim and Chan [Nature 427, 225 (2004)] is the superfluidity of micro-crystallite interfaces. On the basis of the most simple model of a quantum crystal--the checkerboard lattice solid--we show that the superfluidity of interfaces between solid domains can exist in a wide range of parameters. At strong enough inter-particle interaction, a superfluid interface becomes an insulator via a quantum phase transition. Under the conditions of particle-hole symmetry, the transition is of the standard U(1) universality class …
The existence of bright solitons in bulk superfluid He-4 is demonstrated by time-resolved shadowgraph i maging experiments and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The initial liquid compression that leads to the creation of non-linear waves is produced by rapidly expanding plasma from laser ablation. Af ter the leading dissipative period, these waves transform into bright solitons, which exhibit three chara cteristic features: dispersionless propagation, negligible interaction in two-wave collision, and direct dependence between soliton amplitude and the propagation velocity. The exp…
We present diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) results on a new metastable, superfluid phase above the crystal ground state in two-dimensional 4He at densities > 0.065 1/A^2. The state is anisotropic with hexatic orbital order. This implies that the liquid--solid phase transition has two stages: A second order phase transition from the isotropic superfluid to the hexatic superfluid, followed by a first order transition that localizes atoms into the triangular crystal order. This metastable hexatic phase has finite condensate fraction and it provides a natural explanation for the superflow in the super…
The flow of liquid helium through a single nanohole with radius smaller than 25 nm was studied for the first time. Mass flow was induced by applying a pressure difference of up to 1.4 bar across a 50 nm thick Si3N4 membrane and was measured directly by means of mass spectrometry. In liquid He I, we experimentally show that the fluid is not clamped by the short pipe with diameter-to-length ratio D/L~1, despite the small diameter of the nanohole. This viscous flow is quantitatively understood by making use of a model of flow in short pipes. In liquid He II, a two-fluid model for mass flow is use…
In recent years, experimental data were published which point to the possibility of the existence of superfluidity in solid helium. To investigate this phenomenon theoretically we employ a hierarchy of equations for reduced density matrices which describes a quantum system that is in thermodynamic equilibrium below the Bose-Einstein condensation point, the hierarchy being obtained earlier by the author. It is shown that the hierarchy admits solutions relevant to a perfect crystal (immobile) in which there is a frictionless flow of atoms, which testifies to the possibility of superfluidity in i…
Quantum time crystals are systems characterised by spontaneously emerging periodic order in the time domain. A range of such phases has been reported. The concept has even been discussed in popular literature, and deservedly so: while the first speculation on a phase of broken time translation symmetry did not use the name "time crystal", it was later adopted from 1980's popular culture. For the physics community, however, the ultimate qualification of a new concept is its ability to provide predictions and insight. Confirming that time crystals manifest the basic dynamics of quantum mechanics…
The bound state of a He-3 atom at the interface between coexisting crystalline and superfluid phases of He-4 is studied theoretically by means of first principle Quantum Monte Carlo simulations. We consider both the case of a solid/superfluid He-4 interface, as well as that of a few solid layers of He-4 forming on an attractive substrate. It is observed that the He-3 bound state is sharply localized in a well-defined, quasi-2D layer of He-4 in the region intermediate between the solid and the liquid. The layer in which the He-3 atom resides displays an intriguing interplay of atomic localizati…
The complex behavior of liquid ${}^4$He and liquid ${}^3$He in nanoporous media is determined by influence of randomly distributed geometrical confinement as well as by significant contribution from the atoms near walls. In the present paper fractional Schrodinger equation has been used for deriving two-fluid hydrodynamical equations for describing the motion of superfluid helium in the fractal dimension space. Nonlinear equations for oscillations of pressure and temperature are obtained and coupling of pressure and temperature oscillations is observed. Moreover coupling should disappear at ve…
Two different types of transitions of the superfluid $^4$He to quantum turbulence regimes are studied for $1{\rm D}$ geometry in the case when the influence of the normal fluid on superfluid flow is suppressed. It is shown that the roton mechanism of transition to quantum turbulence leads to a critical velocity satisfying the relation $v_c\propto d^{-1/4}$. In the super-flow mechanism, the transition to quantum turbulence arises when the "quantum Reynolds number" is about $10^3$ and the critical velocity depends on channel size $d$ as $v_c\propto d^{-1}$ in agreement with the equations of moti…
We calculate the dislocation glide mobility in solid $^4$He within a model that assumes the existence of a superfluid field associated with dislocation lines. Prompted by the results of this mobility calculation, we study within this model the role that such a superfluid field may play in the motion of the dislocation line when a stress is applied to the crystal. To do this, we relate the damping of dislocation motion, calculated in the presence of the assumed superfluid field, to the shear modulus of the crystal. As the temperature increases, we find that a sharp drop in the shear modulus wil…
We study the drag force on objects moving in a Fermi superfluid at velocities on the order of the Landau velocity $v_L$. The expectation has been that $v_L$ is the critical velocity beyond which the drag force starts to increase towards its normal-state value. This expectation is challenged by a recent experiment measuring the heat generated by a uniformly moving wire immersed in superfluid $^3$He. We introduce the basis for the calculation of the drag force on a macroscopic object using the Fermi-liquid theory of superfluidity. As a technical tool in the calculations we propose a boundary con…
This article presents a phenomenological dynamic phase transition theory -- modeling and analysis -- for liquid helium-3. We derived two new models, for liquid helium-3 with or without applied field, by introducing three wave functions and using a unified dynamical Ginzburg-Landau model. The analysis of these new models leads to predictions of existence of 1) a unstable region, 2) a new phase C in a narrow region, and 3) switch points of transition types on the coexistence curves near two triple points. It is hoped that these predictions will be useful for designing better physical experiments…
Based on electronic structure calculations, the structure of intrinsic positive charge solvated in superfluid helium is identified as triatomic He3^+ ion, which is bound to the surrounding ground state helium atoms through the charge - charge induced dipole interaction in a pairwise additive manner. Bosonic density functional theory calculations show that this ion forms the well-known Atkins' snowball solvation structure where the first rigid helium shell is effectively disconnected from the rest of the liquid. Evaluation of the total energy vs. helium droplet size N shows distinct regions rel…
