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Article
Superfluidity of Grain Boundaries in Solid 4He
Physics Department Faculty Publication Series
  • L Pollet
  • M Boninsegni
  • A Kuklov
  • Nikolai Prokof'ev, University of Massachusetts - Amherst
  • Boris Svistunov, University of Massachusetts - Amherst
  • M Troyer
Publication Date
2007
Abstract

By large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations we show that grain boundaries in 4He crystals are generically superfluid at low temperature, with a transition temperature of the order of ∼0.5  K at the melting pressure; nonsuperfluid grain boundaries are found only for special orientations of the grains. We also find that close vicinity to the melting line is not a necessary condition for superfluid grain boundaries, and a grain boundary in direct contact with the superfluid liquid at the melting curve is found to be mechanically stable and the grain-boundary superfluidity observed by Sasaki et al. [Science 313, 1098 (2006)] is not just a crack filled with superfluid.

Comments
This is the pre-published version harvested from ArXiv. The published version is located at http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v98/i13/e135301
Citation Information
L Pollet, M Boninsegni, A Kuklov, Nikolai Prokof'ev, et al.. "Superfluidity of Grain Boundaries in Solid 4He" Vol. 98 Iss. 13 (2007)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/boris_svistunov/54/