51 research outputs found
Propagation of thermal excitations in a cluster of vortices in superfluid 3He-B
We describe the first measurement on Andreev scattering of thermal
excitations from a vortex configuration with known density, spatial extent, and
orientations in 3He-B superfluid. The heat flow from a blackbody radiator in
equilibrium rotation at constant angular velocity is measured with two quartz
tuning fork oscillators. One oscillator creates a controllable density of
excitations at 0.2Tc base temperature and the other records the thermal
response. The results are compared to numerical calculations of ballistic
propagation of thermal quasiparticles through a cluster of rectilinear
vortices.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Ballistic propagation of thermal excitations near a vortex in superfluid He3-B
Andreev scattering of thermal excitations is a powerful tool for studying
quantized vortices and turbulence in superfluid He3-B at very low temperatures.
We write Hamilton's equations for a quasiparticle in the presence of a vortex
line, determine its trajectory, and find under wich conditions it is Andreev
reflected. To make contact with experiments, we generalize our results to the
Onsager vortex gas, and find values of the intervortex spacing in agreement
with less rigorous estimates
On-chip magnetic cooling of a nanoelectronic device
We demonstrate significant cooling of electrons in a nanostructure below 10mK by demagnetisation of thin-film copper on a silicon chip. Our approach overcomes the typical bottleneck of weak electron-phonon scattering by coupling the electrons directly to a bath of refrigerated nuclei, rather than cooling via phonons in the host lattice. Consequently, weak electron-phonon scattering becomes an advantage. It allows the electrons to be cooled for an experimentally useful period of time to temperatures colder than the dilution refrigerator platform, the incoming electrical connections, and the host lattice. There are efforts worldwide to reach sub-millikelvin electron temperatures in nanostructures to study coherent electronic phenomena and improve the operation of nanoelectronic devices. On-chip magnetic cooling is a promising approach to meet this challenge. The method can be used to reach low, local electron temperatures in other nanostructures, obviating the need to adapt traditional, large demagnetisation stages. We demonstrate the technique by applying it to a nanoelectronic primary thermometer that measures its internal electron temperature. Using an optimised demagnetisation process, we demonstrate cooling of the on-chip electrons from 9mK to below 5mK for over 1000 seconds
Electron - nuclear recoil discrimination by pulse shape analysis
In the framework of the ``ULTIMA'' project, we use ultra cold superfluid 3He
bolometers for the direct detection of single particle events, aimed for a
future use as a dark matter detector. One parameter of the pulse shape observed
after such an event is the thermalization time constant. Until now it was
believed that this parameter only depends on geometrical factors and superfluid
3He properties, and that it is independent of the nature of the incident
particles. In this report we show new results which demonstrate that a
difference for muon- and neutron events, as well as events simulated by heater
pulses exist. The possibility to use this difference for event discrimination
in a future dark matter detector will be discussed.Comment: Proseedings of QFS 2007, Kazan, Russia; 8 pages, 4 figures. Submited
to J. Low Temp. Phy
A low-frequency, high-amplitude, torsional oscillator for turbulence studies in quantum fluids
We describe a new type of torsional oscillator, suitable for studies of quantum fluids at frequencies of ⌠100 Hz, but capable of reaching high velocities of up to several cm\,sâ1. This requires the oscillator amplitude to exceed 100 ÎŒm, which is much too large for a conventional capacitor-driven device. We describe the new geometry for the oscillator, discuss its design, and report our initial tests of its performance
"The trauma of competition": the entry of Air Products Inc. into the industrial gases business in Britain and continental Europe 1947-1970
The British Oxygen Company (BOC) had a virtual monopoly on the supply of industrial gases (e.g. oxygen and acetylene) on the British market through the 1950s, when it was finally challenged by an American-based company, Air Products. Air Products Limited (APL) was able to undercut BOCs position, overcoming high barriers to entry to gain significant market share in this sector, which shares some features of network industries. Factors in this success included conditions imposed by the Board of Trade, APLâs innovations, BOCâs slow response, and favourable market conditions. APLâs success had implications for the internationalisation of the industrial gases industry
Breaking the superfluid speed limit in a fermionic condensate
Coherent condensates appear as emergent phenomena in many systems. They share the characteristic feature of an energy gap separating the lowest excitations from the condensate ground state. This implies that a scattering object, moving through the system with high enough velocity for the excitation spectrum in the scatterer frame to become gapless, can create excitations at no energy cost, initiating the breakdown of the condensateâthe well-known Landau velocity. Whereas, for the neutral fermionic superfluid 3He-B in the T = 0 limit, flow around an oscillating body displays a very clear critical velocity for the onset of dissipation, here we show that for uniform linear motion there is no discontinuity whatsoever in the dissipation as the Landau critical velocity is passed and exceeded. Given the importance of the Landau velocity for our understanding of superfluidity, this result is unexpected, with implications for dissipative effects of moving objects in all coherent condensate systems
- âŠ