Superfluidity of Dense $^4$He in Vycor
Abstract
To understand the recent experiments of Kim and Chan which find a superfluid-like response in dense $^4$He, we calculate properties of a model of $^4$He in Vycor using the Path Integral Monte Carlo method. We find that $^4$He forms a distinct layered structure. The first layer is solid-like and highly localized. The second layer is disordered: some atoms are not localized and they could give rise to the observed superfluid response. Higher layers are then nearly perfect crystals and only participate in the superfluidity in so far as they are close to the second layer. The addition of a single $^3$He atom was enough to bring down the total superfluidity because it goes into the second layer and blocks the exchange in that layer. Our results are consistent with the persistent liquid layer model to explain the observations.Keywords
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