English

Exchange-driven self-diffusion of nanoscale crystalline parahydrogen clusters on graphite

Other Condensed Matter 2025-11-04 v2

Abstract

Computer simulations yield evidence of superfluid behavior of nanoscale size clusters of parahydrogen adsorbed on a graphite substrate at low temperature (T0.25 KT\lesssim 0.25 \text{ K}). Clusters with a number of molecules between 7 and 12 display concurrent superfluidity and crystalline order, reflecting the corrugation of the substrate. Remarkably, it is found that specific clusters with a number of molecules ranging between 7 and 12 self-diffuse on the surface like free particles, despite the strong pinning effect of the substrate. This effect is underlain by coordinated quantum-mechanical exchanges of groups of identical molecules, i.e., it has no classical counterpart.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2508.10883,
  title  = {Exchange-driven self-diffusion of nanoscale crystalline parahydrogen clusters on graphite},
  author = {K. M. Kolevski and M. Boninsegni},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.10883},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

6 pages, 4 figures