The A-B Transition in Superfluid Helium-3 Under Confinement in a Thin Slab Geometry

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2017 Jul 4

PMID 28671184

Citations 5

Authors

N Zhelev

T S Abhilash

E N Smith

R G Bennett

X Rojas

L Levitin

J Saunders

J M Parpia

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The influence of confinement on the phases of superfluid helium-3 is studied using the torsional pendulum method. We focus on the transition between the A and B phases, where the A phase is stabilized by confinement and a spatially modulated stripe phase is predicted at the A-B phase boundary. Here we discuss results from superfluid helium-3 contained in a single 1.08-μm-thick nanofluidic cavity incorporated into a high-precision torsion pendulum, and map the phase diagram between 0.1 and 5.6 bar. We observe only small supercooling of the A phase, in comparison to bulk or when confined in aerogel, with evidence for a non-monotonic pressure dependence. This suggests that an intrinsic B-phase nucleation mechanism operates under confinement. Both the phase diagram and the relative superfluid fraction of the A and B phases, show that strong coupling is present at all pressures, with implications for the stability of the stripe phase.

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