Dynamics of quantum liquids in nanoporous media

We sketch our recent neutron scattering measurements of the phonon-roton (P-R) modes and Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of liquid ⁴He in porous media. The aim is to reveal the interdependence of BEC, well-defined P-R modes and superfluidity in helium confined to nanoscales and in disorder. In all porous media investigated to date, we observe well-defined P-R modes above T_c in the normal liquid phase, up to T_λ. Since well defined P-R modes are associated with BEC, this suggests that there is BEC above T_c in porous media. We interpret this as BEC localized to favorable regions separated by regions of normal fluid. At high pressures, p ≥25 bars, well defined P-R modes are no longer observed at lower wavevectors, Q ≤1.5 ?. At p ≈39 bars a roton is no longer observed. Work is in progress to explore whether loss of modes can be associated with a recently reported Quantum Phase Transition.     

Translationally noninvariant path integral for Bose-Einstein condensate

The Bogolyubov [Hartree-Fock-Bogolyubov (HFB)] method performs the one-particle (mean-field) approximation in the theory of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC). Various generalizations of this method are possible. Apart from a nonlinear theory, taking the correlation effects into consideration, the HFB approximation for translationally noninvariant systems describes an instructive phenomenon. This paper is devoted to the treatment of two cases: superfluid ⁴He in porous media and atomic BEC in traps subjected to the gravitational field. Both these systems show the dependence of a critical BEC temperature T _c on their nonuniform properties in space.     

Specific heat of disordered superfluid 3He

The specific heat of superfluid 3He, disordered by a silica aerogel, is found to have a sharp discontinuity marking the thermodynamic transition to superfluidity at a temperature reduced from that of bulk 3He. The magnitude of the discontinuity is also suppressed. This disorder effect can be understood from the Ginzburg-Landau theory which takes into account elastic quasiparticle scattering suppressing both the transition temperature and the amplitude of the order parameter. We infer that the limiting temperature dependence of the specific heat is linear at low temperatures in the disordered superfluid state, consistent with predictions of gapless excitations everywhere on the Fermi surface.     

Basic connection between superconductivity and superfluidity

A basic and inherently simple connection is shown to exist between superconductivity and superfluidity. It is shown that the author's previously derived general equation, which agrees well with the superconducting transition temperatures for the heavy-electron superconductors, metallic superconductors, oxide superconductors, metallic hydrogen, and neutron stars, also works well for the superfluid transition temperature of 2.6 mK for liquid³He. Reasonable estimates are made from 10^–3 to 10⁹ K — a range of 12 orders of magnitude. The same paradigm applies to the superfluid transition temperature of liquid⁴He, but results in a slightly different equation. The superfluid transition temperature for dilute solutions of³He in superfluid⁴He is estimated to be l–10K. This paradigm works well in detail for metallic, cuprate, and organic superconductors.     

High-Tc spin superfluidity in antiferromagnets

We report the observation of the unusual behavior of induction decay signals in antiferromagnetic monocrystals with Suhl-Nakamura interactions. The signals show the formation of the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of magnons and the existence of spin supercurrent, in complete analogy with the spin superfluidity in the superfluid (3)He and the atomic BEC of quantum gases. In the experiments described here, the temperature of the magnon BEC is a thousand times larger than in the superfluid (3)He. It opens a possibility to apply the spin supercurrent for various magnetic spintronics applications.     

NMR on superfluid<Superscript>3</Superscript>He in aerogel

The transition to superfluidity of³He in high porosity (98.2%) acrogel has been observed by nuclear magnetic resonance techniques. The onset of the transition at all pressures above 13 bar is marked by a sharp increase in NMR frequency similar to that observed in bulk³He-A. This suggests that the aerogel/superfluid phase is highly homogeneous although both the transition temperature, T_c, and the amplitude of the order parameter are substantially suppressed. The acrogel strands are ≈ 50Å in diameter, much smaller than the superfluid coherence length. Consequently, we have attempted to interpret our observations as an impurity scattering problem. Based on our measurements of the magnetic field dependence of T_c it appears that both magnetic and potential scattering play important roles where the magnetic scattering can be associated with solid³He on the aerogel surface. This is determined by isotopic exchange with⁴He, a process which appears to stabilize a new superfluid state similar to the bulk B-phase.     

Superfluidity and collective modes in Rashba spin–orbit coupled Fermi gases

We present a theoretical study of the superfluidity and the corresponding collective modes in two-component atomic Fermi gases with s$s$-wave attraction and synthetic Rashba spin–orbit coupling. The general effective action for the collective modes is derived from the functional path integral formalism. By tuning the spin–orbit coupling from weak to strong, the system undergoes a crossover from an ordinary BCS/BEC superfluid to a Bose–Einstein condensate of rashbons. We show that the properties of the superfluid density and the Anderson–Bogoliubov mode manifest this crossover. At large spin–orbit coupling, the superfluid density and the sound velocity become independent of the strength of the s$s$-wave attraction. The two-body interaction among the rashbons is also determined. When a Zeeman field is turned on, the system undergoes quantum phase transitions to some exotic superfluid phases which are topologically nontrivial. For the two-dimensional system, the nonanalyticities of the thermodynamic functions and the sound velocity across the phase transition are related to the bulk gapless fermionic excitation which causes infrared singularities. The superfluid density and the sound velocity behave nonmonotonically: they are suppressed by the Zeeman field in the normal superfluid phase, but get enhanced in the topological superfluid phase. The three-dimensional system is also studied.     

Anomalous suppression of superfluidity in 4He confined in a nanoporous glass

We explore the superfluidity of 4He confined in a porous glass, which has nanopores of 2.5 nm in diameter, at pressures up to 5 MPa. With increasing pressure, the superfluidity is drastically suppressed, and the superfluid transition temperature approaches 0 K at some critical pressure, Pc approximately 3.4 MPa. The feature suggests that the extreme confinement of 4He into the nanopores induces a quantum phase transition from a superfluid to a nonsuperfluid at 0 K and at Pc.     

Phonon-roton modes and localized Bose-Einstein condensation in liquid helium under pressure in nanoporous media

We show, using inelastic neutron scattering, that liquid helium in porous media, two gelsils and MCM-41, supports a phonon-roton mode up to a pressure of 36-37 bars only. Modes having the highest energy ("maxons") broaden and become unobservable at the lowest pressures (p approximately 26 bars) while rotons survive to the highest pressure. By comparing with the superfluid density observed by Yamamoto and co-workers in gelsil, we propose that there is a Bose glass phase containing islands of BEC surrounding the superfluid phase.     

Neutron scattering study of the excitation spectrum of solid helium at ultra-low temperatures

There has been a resurgence of interest in the properties of solid helium due to the recent discovery of non-classical rotational inertia (NCRI) in solid ⁴He by Chan and coworkers below 200 mK which they have interpreted as a transition to a ‘supersolid’ phase. We have carried out a series of elastic and inelastic neutron scattering measurements on single crystals of hcp ⁴He at temperatures down to 60 mK. While we have found no direct evidence of any change in the excitation spectrum at low temperatures, we have found that the excitation spectrum of solid ⁴He shows several interesting features, including extra branches in addition to the phonon branches. We interpret these extra branches as single particle excitations due to propagating vacancy waves, which map on to the famous ‘roton minimum’ long known in the excitation spectrum of superfluid liquid ⁴He. The results show that in fact solid ⁴He shares several features in common with the superfluid.      

Low temperature thermal properties of crystalline quartz after electron irradiation

Measurements of the temperature specific heat (between 0.12K and 8K) and thermal conductivity (between 0.5K and 20K) of crystalline -quartz after electron irradiation are reported. In the temperature region below 1K the specific heat is larger than in the unirradiated sample. This can be attributed to low energy excitations which are created during irradiation and which are associated with Al impurities. The thermal conductivity is reduced after irradiation. Below 4K the additional thermal resistivity varies asT ^–1.5. The phonon scattering by radiation-induced excitations in -quartz is weak compared to phonon scattering by two level systems (TLS) in vitreous silica.     

Induced P-wave superfluidity in asymmetric fermi gases

We show that two new intraspecies P-wave superfluid phases appear in two-component asymmetric Fermi systems with short-range S-wave interactions. In the BEC limit, phonons of the molecular BEC induce P-wave superfluidity in the excess fermions. In the BCS limit, density fluctuations induce P-wave superfluidity in both the majority and the minority species. These phases may be realized in experiments with spin-polarized Fermi gases.     

ССЛЕДОВАНИЕ РАСПАДА Dy155 → Tb155

The gamma-spectrum and coincidences of gamma-rays appearing in Dy¹⁵⁵ Tb¹⁵⁵ decay have been measured with the aid of a scintillation gamma-spectrometer. The Dy¹⁵⁵ source has been obtained by a repeated chromatographic separation from Ho fraction produced by a spallations reaction Ta+p(E _p=660 MeV). Dy¹⁵⁵ appears as a decay product of Ho¹⁵⁵ (T _1/2= =45 min). In the gamma-spectrum new transitions in the energy range of 1170–2000 keV have been observed. As a result of- coincidence measurements we get a new energy level (1820±15 keV) of Tb¹⁵⁵.

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, Dy¹⁵⁵ . . .     

Metastability and superfluid fraction of the A-like and B phases of <Superscript>3</Superscript>He in aerogel in zero magnetic field

We report the low-frequency sound measurements of the metastable A-like (A*) phase of superfluid ³He confined within a 98% open aerogel matrix in zero magnetic field. The second soundlike (slow) mode provides an accurate determination of the superfluid fraction of (and the transition between) the A* and B phases. The A* and B phases exhibit stable coexistence in the presence of disorder, the ratio of their superfluid fractions (ρ _a ^A* /ρ _s ^B ) is much smaller than that of the bulk A and B phases, and argues that the A* and bulk A phases are distinct.     

Instabilities and the roton spectrum of a quasi-1D Bose-Einstein condensed gas with dipole-dipole interactions

We point out the possibility of having a roton-type excitation spectrum in a quasi-1D Bose-Einstein condensate with dipole-dipole interactions. Normally such a system is quite unstable due to the attractive portion of the dipolar interaction. However, by reversing the sign of the dipolar interaction using either a rotating magnetic field or a laser with circular polarization, a stable cigar-shaped configuration can be achieved whose spectrum contains a roton minimum analogous to that found in helium II. Dipolar gases also offer the exciting prospect of tuning the depth of this roton minimum by directly controlling the interparticle interaction strength. When the minimum touches the zero-energy axis the system is once again unstable, possibly to the formation of a density wave.Received: 26 August 2004, Published online: 26 October 2004PACS: 03.75.Hh Static properties of condensates; thermodynamical, statistical and structural properties. - 03.75.Kk Dynamic properties of condensates; collective and hydrodynamic excitations, superfluid flow - 71.45.Lr Charge-density-wave systems     

Optically pumped lasers between high-lying states in the sodium dimer

More than 25 laser lines around 2.5 m from theC ¹ _u state to (3)¹ _g ⁺ and 7 laser lines around 0.9 m from the high-lying¹ _u state to (2)¹ _g ⁺ in the sodium dimer were detected using a nitrogen laser as the pumping source. Most of the optically pumped laser lines have been identified.Projects Supported by the Science Fund of the Chinese Academy of Sciences     

Unusual Destruction and Enhancement of Superfluidity of Atomic Fermi Gases by Population Imbalance in a One-Dimensional Optical Lattice

We study the superfluid behavior of a population imbalanced ultracold atomic Fermi gases with a short range attractive interaction in a one-dimensional(1 D) optical lattice,using a pairing fluctuation theory.We show that,besides widespread pseudogap phenomena and intermediate temperature superfluidity,the superfluid phase is readily destroyed except in a limited region of the parameter space.We find a new mechanism for pair hopping,assisted by the excessive majority fermions,in the presence of continuum-lattice mixing,which leads to an unusual constant Bose-Einstein condensate(BEC) asymptote for T_c that is independent of pairing strength.In result,on the BEC side of unitarity,superfluidity,when it exists,may be strongly enhanced by population imbalance.     

Mean-field model for Josephson oscillation in a Bose-Einstein condensate on an one-dimensional optical trap

Using the axially-symmetric time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation we study the phase coherence in a repulsive Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) trapped by a harmonic and an one-dimensional optical lattice potential to describe the experiment by Cataliotti et al. on atomic Josephson oscillation [Science 293, 843 (2001)]. The phase coherence is maintained after the BEC is set into oscillation by a small displacement of the magnetic trap along the optical lattice. The phase coherence in the presence of oscillating neutral current across an array of Josephson junctions manifests in an interference pattern formed upon free expansion of the BEC. The numerical response of the system to a large displacement of the magnetic trap is a classical transition from a coherent superfluid to an insulator regime and a subsequent destruction of the interference pattern in agreement with the more recent experiment by Cataliotti et al. [New J. Phys. 5, 71 (2003)].Received: 20 March 2003, Published online: 30 July 2003PACS: 03.75.-b Matter waves - 03.75.Lm Tunneling, Josephson effect, Bose-Einstein condensates in periodic potentials, solitons, vortices and topological excitations - 03.75.Kk Dynamic properties of condensates; collective and hydrodynamic excitations, superfluid flow