17 research outputs found
Dispersion of Ripplons in Superfluid 4he
A detailed study of the dispersion law of surface excitations in liquid \hef
at zero temperature is presented, with special emphasis to the short wave
length region. The hybridization mechanism between surface and bulk modes is
discussed on a general basis, investigating the scattering of slow rotons from
the surface. An accurate density functional, accounting for backflow effects,
is then used to determine the dispersion of both bulk and surface excitations.
The numerical results are close to the experimental data obtained on thick
films and explicitly reveal the occurrence of important hybridization effects
between ripplons and rotons.Comment: 23 pages, REVTEX 3.0, 11 figures upon request, UTF-326/9
Thin helium film on a glass substrate
We investigate by Monte Carlo simulations the structure, energetics and
superfluid properties of thin helium-four films (up to four layers) on a glass
substrate, at low temperature. The first adsorbed layer is found to be solid
and "inert", i.e., atoms are localized and do not participate to quantum
exchanges. Additional layers are liquid, with no clear layer separation above
the second one. It is found that a single helium-three impurity resides on the
outmost layer, not significantly further away from the substrate than
helium-four atoms on the same layer.Comment: Six figures, submitted for publication to the Journal of Low
Temperature Physic
Structural and dynamical properties of superfluid helium: a density functional approach
We present a novel density functional for liquid 4He, properly accounting for
the static response function and the phonon-roton dispersion in the uniform
liquid. The functional is used to study both structural and dynamical
properties of superfluid helium in various geometries. The equilibrium
properties of the free surface, droplets and films at zero temperature are
calculated. Our predictions agree closely to the results of ab initio Monte
Carlo calculations, when available. The introduction of a phenomenological
velocity dependent interaction, which accounts for backflow effects, is
discussed. The spectrum of the elementary excitations of the free surface and
films is studied.Comment: 37 pages, REVTeX 3.0, figures on request at [email protected]
Effects of Pore Walls and Randomness on Phase Transitions in Porous Media
We study spin models within the mean field approximation to elucidate the
topology of the phase diagrams of systems modeling the liquid-vapor transition
and the separation of He--He mixtures in periodic porous media. These
topologies are found to be identical to those of the corresponding random field
and random anisotropy spin systems with a bimodal distribution of the
randomness. Our results suggest that the presence of walls (periodic or
otherwise) are a key factor determining the nature of the phase diagram in
porous media.Comment: REVTeX, 11 eps figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Surface state atoms and their contribution to the surface tension of quantum liquids
We investigate the new type of excitations on the surface of liquid helium.
These excitations, called surfons, appear because helium atoms have discrete
energy level at the liquid surface, being attracted to the surface by the van
der Waals force and repulsed at a hard-core interatomic distance. The
concentration of the surfons increases with temperature. The surfons propagate
along the surface and form a two-dimensional gas. Basing on the simple model of
the surfon microscopic structure, we estimate the surfon activation energy and
effective mass for both helium isotopes. We also calculate the contribution of
the surfons to the temperature dependence of the surface tension. This
contribution explains the great and long-standing discrepancy between theory
and experiment on this temperature dependence in both helium isotopes. The
achieved agreement between our theory and experiment is extremely high. The
comparison with experiment allows to extract the surfon activation energy and
effective mass. The values of these surfon microscopic parameters are in a
reasonable agreement with the calculated from the proposed simple model of
surfon structure.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure
Quantum prewetting transitions in liquid He
This article focuses on the advantages of organizing rules for knowledge extraction in a hierarchical order. It details the methodology to develop extraction rules, and illustrates the results with examples taken from real-life competitive intelligence applications