Helical spin texture in a thin film of superfluid ${}^3$He
Superconductivity
2019-06-19 v2 High Energy Physics - Theory
Abstract
We consider a thin film of superfluid He under conditions that stabilize the A-phase. We show that in the presence of a uniform superflow and an external magnetic field perpendicular to the film, the spin degrees of freedom develop a nonuniform, helical texture. Our prediction is robust and relies solely on Galilei invariance and other symmetries of He, which induce a coupling of the orbital and spin degrees of freedom. The length scale of the helical order can be tuned by varying the velocity of the superflow and the magnetic field, and may be in reach of near-future experiments.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1806.10441,
title = {Helical spin texture in a thin film of superfluid ${}^3$He},
author = {Tomas Brauner and Sergej Moroz},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1806.10441},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
9 pages, 1 figure; v2: matches text to appear in PRB