English

Nucleation and Interfacial Coupling between Pure and Dirty Superfluid Phases of 3He

Condensed Matter 2009-11-07 v1

Abstract

The nucleation of the first order phase transition of superfluid 3He-B from superfluid 3He-A is quite remarkable since it requires a seed of the order of a micron. We have studied this nucleation for 3He confined to a very dilute silica aerogel. This dirty superfluid behaves in a manner similar to previous reports for the pure superfluid. But we have discovered a novel magnetically driven nucleation switch acting on the pure superfluid B-phase. Lastly, we find the surprising result that the proximity effect between the pure and dirty superfluids at their interface is insufficient to nucleate the B-phase in either superfluid.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0112279,
  title  = {Nucleation and Interfacial Coupling between Pure and Dirty Superfluid Phases of 3He},
  author = {G. Gervais and K. Yawata and N. Mulders and W. P. Halperin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0112279},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

4 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Physical Review Letters