Broken Symmetry and Nonequilibrium Superfluid 3He
Abstract
These lecture notes provide an introduction to non-equilibrium superfluid 3He, with applications to high-frequency excitations, including aspects of symmetry breaking in 3He and its effects on collective mode dynamics. In 1957 Landau predicted that liquid 3He would support propagating shear waves at low temperatures, i.e. a transverse sound mode. Such waves have recently been observed at low temperatures in the superfluid B-phase of liquid 3He. These observations provide a beautiful example of the effect of spontaneous symmetry breaking in condensed matter. I discuss the theory of transverse wave propagation in 3He and the recent detection of these waves by magneto-acoustic rotation of the 3He polarization in a magnetic field.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9910260,
title = {Broken Symmetry and Nonequilibrium Superfluid 3He},
author = {J. A. Sauls},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9910260},
year = {2010}
}
Comments
Lecture Notes for the 1999 Les Houches Winter School on "Topological Defects and Non-Equilibrium Dyanmics of Symmetry Breaking Phase Transitions. (27 pages with 7 figures) - minor corrections made