Three dimensionality of pulsed second-sound waves in He II

Three dimensionality of 3D pulsed second sound wave in He II emitted from a finite size heater is experimentally investigated and theoretically studied based on two-fluid model in this study. The detailed propagation of 3D pulsed second sound wave is presented and reasonable agreement between the experimental and theoretical results is obtained. Heater size has a big influence on the profile of 3D second sound wave. The counterflow between the superfluid and normal fluid components becomes inverse in the rarefaction of 3D second sound wave. The amplitude of rarefaction decreases due to the interaction between second sound wave and quantized vortices, which explains the experimental results about second sound wave near [Phys. Rev. Lett. 73, 2480 (1994)]. The accumulation of dense quantized vortices in the vicinity of heater surface leads to the formation of a thermal boundary layer, and further increase of heating duration results in the occurrence of boiling phenomena. PACS numbers: 67.40.Pm 43.25.+y 67.40.BzComment: 30 pages, 9 figures. Physical Review B, Accepte

Parametric generation of second sound in superfluid helium: linear stability and nonlinear dynamics

We report the experimental studies of a parametric excitation of a second sound (SS) by a first sound (FS) in a superfluid helium in a resonance cavity. The results on several topics in this system are presented: (i) The linear properties of the instability, namely, the threshold, its temperature and geometrical dependencies, and the spectra of SS just above the onset were measured. They were found to be in a good quantitative agreement with the theory. (ii) It was shown that the mechanism of SS amplitude saturation is due to the nonlinear attenuation of SS via three wave interactions between the SS waves. Strong low frequency amplitude fluctuations of SS above the threshold were observed. The spectra of these fluctuations had a universal shape with exponentially decaying tails. Furthermore, the spectral width grew continuously with the FS amplitude. The role of three and four wave interactions are discussed with respect to the nonlinear SS behavior. The first evidence of Gaussian statistics of the wave amplitudes for the parametrically generated wave ensemble was obtained. (iii) The experiments on simultaneous pumping of the FS and independent SS waves revealed new effects. Below the instability threshold, the SS phase conjugation as a result of three-wave interactions between the FS and SS waves was observed. Above the threshold two new effects were found: a giant amplification of the SS wave intensity and strong resonance oscillations of the SS wave amplitude as a function of the FS amplitude. Qualitative explanations of these effects are suggested.Comment: 73 pages, 23 figures. to appear in Phys. Rev. B, July 1 st (2001

Nonlinear and shock waves in superfluid HeII.

We review studies of the generation and propagation of nonlinear and shock sound waves in He II (the superfluid phase of 4He), both under the saturated vapor pressure (SVP) and at elevated pressures. The evolution in shape of second and first sound waves excited by a pulsed heater has been investigated for increasing power W of the heat pulse. It has been found that, by increasing the pressure P from SVP up to 25 atm, the temperature T_lambda, at which the nonlinearity coefficient alpha of second sound reverses its sign, is decreased from 1.88 to 1.58 K. Thus at all pressures there exists a wide temperature range below T_lambda where alpha is negative, so that the temperature discontinuity(shock front) should be formed at the center of a propagating bipolar pulse of second sound. Numerical estimates show that, with rising pressure, the amplitude ratio of linear first and second sound waves generated by the heater at small W should increase significantly. This effect has allowed us to observe at P=13.3 atm a linear wave of heatingrarefaction in first sound, and its transformation to a shock wave of cooling (compression). Measurements made at high W for pressures above and below the critical pressure in He II, Pcr=2.2 atm, suggest that the main reason for initiation of the first sound compression wave is strong thermal expansion of a layer of He I (the normal phase) created at the heater-He II interface when W exceeds a critical value. Experiments with nonlinear second sound waves in a high-quality resonator show that, when the driving amplitude of the second sound is sufficiently high, multiple harmonics of second sound waves are generated over a wide range of frequencies due to nonlinearity. At sufficiently high frequencies the nonlinear transfer of the wave energy to sequentially higher wave numbers is terminated by the viscous damping of the waves