637 research outputs found
Absence of Pressure-Driven Supersolid Flow at Low Frequency
An important unresolved question in supersolid research is the degree to
which the non-classical rotational inertia (NCRI) phenomenon observed in the
torsional oscillator experiments of Kim and Chan, is evidence for a
Bose-condensed supersolid state with superfluid-like properties. In an open
annular geometry, Kim and Chan found that a fraction of the solid moment of
inertia is decoupled from the motion of the oscillator; however, when the
annulus is blocked by a partition, the decoupled supersolid fraction is locked
to the oscillator being accelerated by an AC pressure gradient generated by the
moving partition. These observations are in accord with superfluid
hydrodynamics. We apply a low frequency AC pressure gradient in order to search
for a superfluid-like response in a supersolid sample. Our results are
consistent with zero supersolid flow in response to the imposed low frequency
pressure gradient. A statistical analysis of our data sets a bound, at the 68%
confidence level, of 9.6 nm/s for the mass transport velocity
carried by a possible supersolid flow. In terms of a simple model for the
supersolid, an upper bound of 3.3 is set for the supersolid
fraction at 25 mK, at this same confidence level. These findings force the
conclusion that the NCRI observed in the torsional oscillator experiments is
not evidence for a frequency independent superfluid-like state. Supersolid
behavior is a frequency-dependent phenomenon, clearly evident in the frequency
range of the torsional oscillator experiments, but undetectably small at
frequencies approaching zero.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
Possible role of 3He impurities in solid 4He
We use a quantum lattice gas model to describe essential aspects of the
motion of 4He atoms and of 3He impurities in solid 4He. This study suggests
that 3He impurities bind to defects and promote 4He atoms to interstitial sites
which can turn the bosonic quantum disordered crystal into a metastable
supersolid. It is suggested that defects and interstitial atoms are produced
during the solid 4He nucleation process where the role of 3He impurities (in
addition to the cooling rate) is known to be important even at very small (1
ppm) impurity concentration. It is also proposed that such defects can form a
glass phase during the 4He solid growth by rapid cooling.Comment: 4 two-column Revtex pages, 4 figures. Europhysics Letters (in Press
Conformational analysis of 2,2-difluoroethylamine hydrochloride: double gauche effect
The gauche effect in fluorinated alkylammonium salts is well known and attributed either to an intramolecular hydrogen bond or to an electrostatic attraction between the positively charged nitrogen and the vicinal electronegative fluorine atom. This work reports the effect of adding a fluorine atom in 2-fluoroethylamine hydrochloride on the conformational isomerism of the resulting 2,2-difluoroethylamine chloride (2). The analysis was carried out using NMR coupling constants in D2O solution, in order to mimic the equilibrium conditions in a physiological medium, in the gas phase and in implicit water through theoretical calculations. Despite the presence of sigma(CH)->sigma(*)(CF) and sigma(CH)->sigma(*)(CN) interactions, which usually rule the hyperconjugative gauche effect in 1,2-disubstituted ethanes, the most important forces leading to the double gauche effect (+NH3 in the gauche relationship with both fluorine atoms) in 2 are the Lewis-type ones. Particularly, electrostatic interactions are operative even in water solution, where they should be significantly attenuated, whereas hyperconjugation and hydrogen bond have secondary importance10877882CONSELHO NACIONAL DE DESENVOLVIMENTO CIENTÍFICO E TECNOLÓGICO - CNPQFUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE MINAS GERAIS - FAPEMIGFUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO - FAPESPsem informaçãosem informação2012/03933-5; 2011/11098-6; 2011/01170-
Giant Coulomb broadening and Raman lasing on ionic transitions
CW generation of anti-Stokes Raman laser on a number of blue-green argon-ion
lines (4p-4s, 4p-3d) has been demonstrated with optical pumping from metastable
levels 3d'^2G, 3d^4F. It is found, that the population transfer rate is
increased by a factor of 3-5 (and hence, the output power of such Raman laser)
owing to Coulomb diffusion in the velocity space. Measured are the excitation
and relaxation rates for the metastable level. The Bennett hole on the
metastable level has been recorded using the probe field technique. It has been
shown that the Coulomb diffusion changes shape of the contour to exponential
cusp profile while its width becomes 100 times the Lorentzian one and reaches
values close to the Doppler width. Such a giant broadening is also confirmed by
the shape of the absorption saturation curve.Comment: RevTex 18 pages, 5 figure
Observation of non-classical rotational inertia in bulk solid 4He
In recent torsional oscillator experiments by Kim and Chan (KC), a decrease
of rotational inertia has been observed in solid 4He in porous materials and in
a bulk annular channel. This observation strongly suggests the existence of
"non-classical rotational inertia" (NCRI), i.e. superflow, in solid 4He. In
order to study such a possible "supersolid" phase, we perform torsional
oscillator experiments for cylindrical solid 4He samples. We have observed
decreases of rotational inertia below 200 mK for two solid samples (pressures P
= 4.1 and 3.0 MPa). The observed NCRI fraction at 70 mK is 0.14 %, which is
about 1/3 of the fraction observed in the annulus by KC. Our observation is the
first experimental confirmation of the possible supersolid finding by KC.Comment: 6 pages, 3 firures, submitted to J. Low Temp. Phys. (Proceedings of
QFS2006
Search for supersolidity in 4He in low-frequency sound experiments
We present results of the search for supersolid 4He using low-frequency,
low-level mechanical excitation of a solid sample grown and cooled at fixed
volume. We have observed low frequency non-linear resonances that constitute
anomalous features. These features, which appear below about 0.8 K, are absent
in 3He. The frequency, the amplitude at which the nonlinearity sets in, and the
upper temperature limit of existence of these resonances depend markedly on the
sample history.Comment: Submitted to the Quantum Fluids and Solids Conf. Aug. 2006 Kyot
Thermal History of Solid 4He Under Oscillation
We have studied the thermal history of the resonant frequency of a torsional
oscillator containing solid 4He. We find that the magnitude of the frequency
shift that occurs below 100 mK is multivalued in the low temperature limit,
with the exact value depending on how the state is prepared. This result can be
qualitatively explained in terms of the motion and pinning of quantized
vortices within the sample. Several aspects of the data are also consistent
with the response of dislocation lines to oscillating stress fields imposed on
the solid.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure
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Microhardness and elastic modulus of nanocrystalline Al-Zr
An investigation of the mechanical properties of nanocrystalline Al-Zr alloy composites has been conducted via nanoindentation and Vickers microhardness experiments. The microhardness of the samples exhibits a four-fold increase over the concentration range of 0-30 wt.% Zr, from {approximately}0.7 GPa to nearly 3 GPa. The aluminum grain size is found to be strongly correlated with the level of zirconium present in the samples, suggesting that the observed hardness increase can be attributed to the combined effects of alloying and grain size reduction. The elastic moduli of the nanocrystalline Al-Zr samples are determined to be similar to the modulus of coarse-grained aluminum and independent of zirconium content
Zero-point vacancies in quantum solids
A Jastrow wave function (JWF) and a shadow wave function (SWF) describe a
quantum solid with Bose--Einstein condensate; i.e. a supersolid. It is known
that both JWF and SWF describe a quantum solid with also a finite equilibrium
concentration of vacancies x_v. We outline a route for estimating x_v by
exploiting the existing formal equivalence between the absolute square of the
ground state wave function and the Boltzmann weight of a classical solid. We
compute x_v for the quantum solids described by JWF and SWF employing very
accurate numerical techniques. For JWF we find a very small value for the zero
point vacancy concentration, x_v=(1.4\pm0.1) x 10^-6. For SWF, which presently
gives the best variational description of solid 4He, we find the significantly
larger value x_v=(1.4\pm0.1) x 10^-3 at a density close to melting. We also
study two and three vacancies. We find that there is a strong short range
attraction but the vacancies do not form a bound state.Comment: 19 pages, submitted to J. Low Temp. Phy
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