Search results for "Superfluid helium-4"

Observation of a superfluid component within solid helium.

2011

We demonstrate by neutron scattering that a localized superfluid component exists at high pressures within solid helium in aerogel. Its existence is deduced from the observation of two sharp phonon-roton spectra which are clearly distinguishable from modes in bulk superfluid helium. These roton excitations exhibit different roton gap parameters than the roton observed in the bulk fluid at freezing pressure. One of the roton modes disappears after annealing the samples. Comparison with theoretical calculations suggests that the model that reproduces the observed data best is that of superfluid double layers within the solid and at the helium-substrate interface.

2021

Previously, rotons were observed in correlated quantum systems at low temperatures, including superfluid helium and Bose-Einstein condensates. Here, following a recent theoretical proposal, we repo...

Thermodynamics of computation and linear stability limits of superfluid refrigeration of a model computing array

2019

We analyze the stability of the temperature profile of an array of computing nanodevices refrigerated by flowing superfluid helium, under variations in temperature, computing rate, and barycentric velocity of helium. It turns out that if the variation in dissipated energy per bit with respect to temperature variations is higher than some critical values, proportional to the effective thermal conductivity of the array, then the steady-state temperature profiles become unstable and refrigeration efficiency is lost. Furthermore, a restriction on the maximum rate of variation in the local computation rate is found.

Production of zero energy radioactive beams through extraction across superfluid helium surface

2003

A radioactive Ra-223 source was immersed in superfluid helium at 1.2-1.7 K. Electric fields transported recoiled Rn-219 ions in the form of snowballs to the surface and further extracted them across the surface. The ions were focussed onto an aluminium foil and alpha particle spectra were taken with a surface barrier spectrometer. This enabled us to determine the efficiency for each process unambiguously. The pulsed second sound wave proved effective in enhancing the extraction of positive ions from the surface. Thus we offer a novel method for study of impurities in superfluid helium and propose this method for production of zero energy nuclear beams for use at radioactive ion beam facilit…

Extraction of radioactive positive ions across the surface of superfluid helium: A new method to produce cold radioactive nuclear beams

2003

Alpha-decay recoils 219Rn were stopped in superfluid helium and positive ions were extracted by electric field into the vapour phase. This first quantitative observation of extraction was successfully conducted using highly sensitive radioactivity detection. The efficiency for extraction across the liquid surface was 23 ± 4% at 1.60 K, the release time was 90 ± 10 ms at 1.50 K and the barrier for positive ions through a free superfluid-helium surface was 19.4 ± 4.5 K. The pulsed second sound proved to be effective in enhancing the extraction.

Efficient numerical method for simulating static and dynamic properties of superfluid helium

2004

Density functional theory (DFT) offers computationally affordable way of describing static and dynamic properties of superfluid 4He. In general, the DFT models yield single particle-like Schrodinger equations with a nonlinear potential term that accounts for all the many-body interactions. The resulting equations can be solved for small amplitude plane wave excitations in the bulk whereas fully numerical solution must be sought in more complicated cases. In this paper we propose a numerical method that can be used in solving the time-dependent nonlinear Schrodinger equation in both real and imaginary times. The method is based on operator splitting technique where each component operator is…

Alternative Vinen equation and its extension to rotating counterflow superfluid turbulence

2007

Two alternative Vinen's evolution equations for the vortex line density L in counterflow superfluid turbulence, are physically admissible and lead to analogous results in steady states. In Phys. Rev. B, 69, 094513 (2004) the most used of them was generalized to counterflow superfluid turbulence in rotating containers. Here, the analogous generalization for the alternative Vinen's equation is proposed. Both generalized Vinen's equations are compared with the experimental results, not only in steady-states but also in some unsteady situations. From this analysis follows that the solutions of the alternative Vinen's equation tend significantly faster to the corresponding final steady state val…

Refrigeration of an Array of Cylindrical Nanosystems by Flowing Superfluid Helium

2016

We consider the refrigeration of an array of heat-dissipating cylindrical nanosystems as a simplified model of computer refrigeration. We explore the use of He II as cooling fluid, taking into account forced convection and heat conduction. The main conceptual and practical difficulties arise in the calculation of the effective thermal conductivity. Since He II does not follow Fourier’s law, the effective geometry-dependent conductivity must be extracted from a more general equation for heat transfer. Furthermore, we impose the restrictions that the maximum temperature along the array should be less than (Formula presented.) transition temperature and that quantum turbulence is avoided, in o…

Contribution of the normal component to the thermal resistance of turbulent liquid helium

2015

Previous results for the velocity profile of the normal component of helium II in counterflow are used to evaluate the viscous contribution to the effective thermal resistance. It turns out that such a contribution becomes considerably higher than the usual Landau estimate, because in the presence of vortices, the velocity profile is appreciably different from the Poiseuille parabolic profile. Thus, a marked increase in the contribution of the normal component to the thermal resistance with respect to the viscous Landau estimate does not necessarily imply that the normal component is turbulent. Furthermore, we examine the influence of a possible slip flow along the walls when the radius of …

Sub-MeV dark matter and the Goldstone modes of superfluid helium

2019

We show how the relativistic effective field theory for the superfluid phase of helium-4 can replace the standard methods used to compute the production rates of low momentum excitations due to the interaction with an external probe. This is done by studying the scattering problem of a light dark matter particle in the superfluid, and comparing to some existing results. We show that the rate of emission of two phonons, the Goldstone modes of the effective theory, gets strongly suppressed for sub-MeV dark matter particles due to a fine cancellation between two different tree-level diagrams in the limit of small exchanged momenta. This phenomenon is found to be a consequence of the particular…