Nonlinear excitations in a film of a mixture of 3He and superfluid 4He

Using a combination of the superfluid ⁴He film model of Rutledge et al. and the layered model of Guyer and Miller we have investigated the nonlinear excitations in a film of a mixture of ³He and superfluid ⁴He. We have shown that such a system allows one-dimensional soliton excitations. These solitons, however, are not stable with respect to transverse perturbations. In that case the system allows two-dimensional lump solutions.The paper was presented at Stat. Phys. 18, IUPAP International Conference on Statistical Physics held at Berlin, August 1992.     

The collective excitations of superfluid4He in aerogel glass

When liquid⁴He is condensed in porous aerogel glass (typical pore size ≈ 500 Å), many of the superfluid properties are significantly altered. Neutron inelastic scattering has been used to measure the collective phonon-roton excitations of liquid⁴He in this restricted geometry. Although at low temperature (1.3 K) the observed dispersion relation is identical to that of bulk⁴He, its temperature dependence is shown to be different. Previously unexplained superfluid fraction data are shown to be derivable from these microscopic measurements. An intrinsic broadening of the excitations associated with the restricted geometry is also present. Possible microscopic explanations for the unusual temperature variation of the collective excitation energies are discussed.     

Magnetic excitations in superfluid 3He

Localized magnetic excitations (solitons) in superfluid ³He are studied theoretically. In the A phase, we determine the dispersion of solitons in both the longitudinal and the transversal configurations, while in the B phase we limit ourselves to the longitudinal soliton in the Leggett configuration. In the wall pinned configuration of the B phase we show that the magnetic perturbation propagates as spin wave. The effects of the spin-diffusion term on solitons as well as spin waves are considered. The soliton velocity decreases exponentially in time owing to the spin-diffusion term with a characteristic time % MathType!MTEF!2!1!+-% feaafeart1ev1aaatCvAUfeBSjuyZL2yd9gzLbvyNv2CaerbuLwBLn% hiov2DGi1BTfMBaeXafv3ySLgzGmvETj2BSbqefm0B1jxALjhiov2D% aebbfv3ySLgzGueE0jxyaibaiiYdd9qrFfea0dXdf9vqai-hEir8Ve% ea0de9qq-hbrpepeea0db9q8as0-LqLs-Jirpepeea0-as0Fb9pgea% 0lrP0xe9Fve9Fve9qapdbaqaaeGacaGaaiaabeqaamaabaabcaGcba% qedmvETj2BSbacfaGae83KdCKae8hiaaIae83waSLaeyyyIORaaiik% aiaaiodacaGGPaGaaiikaiaadogadaahaaWcbeqaamaaCaaameqaba% GaaGOmaaaaaaGcciGGVaGaamiraiabfM6axnaaCaaaleqabaWaaWba% aWqabeaacaaIYaaaaaaakiaacMcacaGGDbaaaa!4DB4!\[\Gamma [ \equiv (3)(c^{^2 } /D\Omega ^{^2 } )]\] where D is the spin-diffusion constant, is the Leggett frequency, and c is the spin-wave velocity.Supported by the National Science Foundation.     

Neutron scattering from liquid 4He

In this lecture the study of excitations in quantum fluids and solids using neutrons is briefly introduced. The remainder focuses on liquid ⁴ He, giving a brief historical sketch of ideas on phonons and rotons, a survey of some recent neutron scattering data particularly on the temperature dependence of S(Q, ) and a new interpretation of phonons and rotons in superfluid ⁴He.Now at Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware 19716.     

Study of rotons in superfluid4He by Raman scattering

There is a long standing disagreement between neutron and Raman scattering from rotons in superfluid⁴He near T. In neutron scattering the linewidth becomes very large and the roton signal seems to disappear at T. A substantially smaller linewidth is observed with Raman scattering and the roton signal is present even at T. We have interpreted this difference (J. Low Temp. Phys. 93, 879 (1993)) as due to a modulation of the roton energy by a fluctuating local superfluid velocity due to proliferation of vorticity as T is approached. This gives rise to an extra contribution to the roton linewidth in neutron scattering but not in Raman scattering in which two rotons with almost opposite momenta are excited. We propose a test of this explanation with evanescent field Raman scattering. It has been suggested (A. Kuklov, A. Bulatov and J.L. Birman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 72, 3855 (1994)) that in such a measurement the scattering by a single roton should be measurable. In this case the presence of a fluctuating local superfluid velocity should show up as in neutron scattering and corroborate our proposal.     

Generation of intrinsic excitations in superfluid 4He by using gas jet approach

No Heading A radio frequency discharged helium gas jet was used to generate intrinsic excitations in bulk superfluid ⁴He. The present experimental results and our previous estimates show that metastable triplet state He atoms and excimers cannot enter directly the liquid but rather concentrate on the liquid surface. High concentration of metastable species promotes reactions, which then lead to formation of He ions. Upon electron - ion recombination, population of highly excited atomic and diatomic excimer electronic states occurs. Effect of molecular hydrogen on quenching of the helium emissions is demonstrated. Excitations are efficiently transferred from He to H₂.PACS numbers: 33.20 Kf, 33.70 Jg.     

Bound states of one-particle excitations in superfluid3He near walls

It is argued that a large number of bound states with energy below the gap can exist near the walls of a vessel containing superfluid³He. This is due to the decrease of the energy gap near the walls. Bound states can exist in both B and A phases.     

A novel He3He4 dilution refrigerator with superfluid He4 circulation

A novel dilution refrigerator system is proposed, which offers the potentiality of very high circulation rates. The design of this refrigerator is described and the construction and performance of a prototype are discussed. He⁴ is circulated by means of a multi-stage thermomechanical or fountain pump, which can build up high fountain pressures.     

Solitons in superfluid 4He films

The Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation is derived from Landau two-fluid hydrodynamics applied to the thickness oscillation of the superfluid ⁴He film at low temperatures, where the main restoring force is van der Waals attraction from the substrate and the thermomechanical force due to phonons is a small correction. Since the usual third-sound generators and detectors are far wider than the individual solitons, the asymptotic solution of the KdV equation provided by the inverse scattering method is coarse-grained by regarding it as a continuous train of sharp pulses. The envelope so obtained still shows a singular front proportional to (t–t ₀)^–1/2, where t ₀ is the arrival time of the fastest soliton, and should therefore be observable with the appropriate experimental arrangement.     

3He impurity excitations in solid4He

The problem of³He mobility in dilute³He-⁴He solid mixtures has been treated both theoretically and experimentally. The Hamiltonian of the system can be reduced to the Hamiltonian of strongly interacting impurity quasiparticles corresponding to some time-averaged states. The experiments carried out on solid mixtures with³He concentration 2.17%, 0.75%, 0.25%, or 0.092% by the NMR method show that at sufficiently low (T<1.2 K) temperatures the diffusion coefficient becomes temperature independent and inversely proportional to³He concentration. These results substantiate qualitative conclusions of the theory. Analysis of the experimental data makes it possible to take into account the phonon part of the³He diffusion coefficient and to obtain, up to a constant, the³He-⁴He exchange energyJ10^–7 K. All the facts mentioned above testify to the substantially quantum nature of the³He diffusion process in dilute³He-⁴He mixtures.     

Dispersion of ripplons in superfluid4He

The excitations of the free surface of liquid⁴He at zero temperature are studied, with special emphasis to the short wave length region. The hybridization mechanism between surface and bulk modes is discussed on a general basis, investigating the scattering of slow rotons from the surface. An accurate density functional, accounting for backflow effects, is then used to determine the dispersion of both bulk and surface excitations. The numerical results are close to the experimental data obtained on films and confirm in an explicit way the general reflection mechanism exhibited by rotons. Moreover they reveal the occurrence of a damped ripplon branch above the roton threshold.     

Static response function in superfluid4He

Rigorous lower and upper bounds for the static response function in superfluid⁴He at zero temperature are derived using a sum rule approach. The ingredients needed to calculate the bounds are taken from recent Monte Carlo simulations for the ground state. The new bounds improve significantly the Feynman approximation and provide estimates of the static response function in agreement with the experimental data at zero pressure.     

A 2-level anisotropic electronic system in superfluid 4He

No Heading Theory for treating a two-level electronic system in superfluid helium is described. Numerical density functional theory calculations in 3-D are then used to calculate electronic absorption spectra for both spherical and angularly anisotropic chromophores. The results can be used in rationalizing the experimentally observed absorption spectra in small helium droplets. It is shown that anisotropic with the liquid does not lead to considerable changes in the linear absorption spectrum when compared to a purely spherical case.PACS numbers: 33.20 Kf, 33.70 Jg     

Ultrasonic measurements as a probe of3He/4He phase separation in aerogels

We have used ultrasonic velocity and attenuation measurements to study the phase separation of³He/⁴He mixtures confined in a silica aerogel with a porosity of 87%. We used both shear and longitudinal sound and varied the frequency between 4 and 20 MHz. The superfluid transition is accompanied by a velocity increase due to decoupling and by a critical attenuation peak which increases with frequency. At the phase separation there are changes in the velocity and attenuation, and hysteresis on thermal cycling. We show some recent results and discuss how they relate to the phase diagram inferred from torsional oscillator and heat capacity measurements on helium mixtures in aerogels.     

Elementary excitations of4He clusters

The elementary excitations of⁴He clusters containingN atoms are investigated by solving the equations of the random phase approximation (RPA) with a phenomenological effective interaction. The calculations were done for 40N728. The effects of the RPA correlations are explicitly discussed. Important deviations from the predictions of the liquid droplet model (LDM) are found up toN500 for the breathing compression mode and up toN100 for surface excitations. Sum rules for compression and surface excitations are also derived and discussed.     

Variational theory of rotons in superfluid4He

We have extended the shadow wave function for excited states by including an explicit backflow term in the shadow variables. The variational computation gives a roton energy 9.18 K, only 6% above experiment. Similar agreement is found at freezing density. Also the strength Z_q of the single excitation peak greatly improves. The uniform agreement between theory and experiment at all wave vectors suggests that there is no qualitative difference in the wave function of phonon, maxon and roton excitations. Only the amount of backflow and short range correlations greatly varies with k.     

Depression of the superfluid transition in4He

We study superfluid⁴He near T in a homogeneous metastable state where a finite superfluid velocity v_s is present. Neglecting vortices we perform a renormalization-group calculation of the critical velocity v_sc(T) at which the superfluid state becomes unstable. We apply this result to the situation where the superfluid velocity is induced by a finite heat current Q. A critical heat current Q_c(T) corresponding to v_sc(T) is found which implies a transition temperature T (Q)=T[1–A_oQ^x]. We determine the exact exponent x=[(d–1)v] ^–1 0.744 in d=3 dimensions and calculate A_o in one-loop order. Our results for A_o and x are compared with recent experimental data.     

Heat transport in dilute mixtures of3He in superfluid4He

We report new measurements of the effective thermal conductivity K_eff and relaxation time τ in dilute mixtures of³He in superfluid⁴He, with molar concentrationsX≤10⁻³. The temperature range extended fromT≈1.4 K toT _λ. Both K_cff and τ are found to agree with theoretical predictions, in contrast to previous experiments where significant differences were observed. A new thermal conductivity cell design was used which almost completely eliminates extraneous volumes and surfaces, and the earlier results are explained in relation to these design changes.