Defect Formation in Quench-Cooled Superfluid Phase Transition

Preprint

18 June 1997

preprint
Published by arXiv in arXiv

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.cond-mat/9706038

Abstract

We use neutron absorption in rotating 3He-B to heat locally a 10 micrometer-size volume into normal phase. When the heated region cools back in microseconds, vortex lines are formed. We record with NMR the number of lines as a function of superflow velocity and compare to the Kibble-Zurek theory of vortex-loop freeze-out from a random network of defects. The measurements confirm the calculated loop-size distribution and show that also the superfluid state itself forms as a patchwork of competing A and B phase blobs. This explains the A to B transition in supercooled neutron-irradiated 3He-A.

Keywords

COOLED SUPERFLUID
PHASE TRANSITION
SUPERFLUID PHASE
DEFECT FORMATION
QUENCH COOLED
USE NEUTRON
COOLS
3HE

All Related Versions

Version 1, 1997-06-05, ArXiv
Version 2, 1997-06-18, ArXiv
Published version: Physical Review Letters, 80 (7), 1465.

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