Year: 2011
Type: article
Abstract: We investigate the constraints on the superfluid fraction of an amorphous solid following from an upper bound derived by Leggett. To accomplish this, we use as input density profiles generated for amorphous solids in a variety of different manners including by investigating Gaussian fluctuations around classical results. These rough estimates suggest that, at least at the level of the upper bound, there is not much difference in terms of superfluidity between a glass and a crystal characterized by the same Lindemann ratio. Moreover, we perform path integral Monte Carlo simulations of distinguishable helium-4 rapidly quenched from the liquid phase to very low temperature, at the density of the freezing transition. We find that the system crystallizes very quickly, without any sign of intermediate glassiness. Overall our results suggest that the experimental observations of large superfluid fractions in helium-4 particles after a rapid quench correspond to samples evolving far from equilibrium, instead of being in a stable glass phase. Other scenarios and comparisons to other results on the super-glass phase are also discussed.
Source: Physical Review B
Institutions: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives, Institut de Physique Théorique, Princeton University, Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Trieste, Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: National Science Foundation
OpenAlex ID: W2067196721