Structure of metastable 2D liquid helium
Other Condensed Matter
2009-11-13 v2 Statistical Mechanics
Abstract
We present diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) results on a new metastable, superfluid phase above the crystal ground state in two-dimensional 4He at densities > 0.065 1/A^2. The state is anisotropic with hexatic orbital order. This implies that the liquid--solid phase transition has two stages: A second order phase transition from the isotropic superfluid to the hexatic superfluid, followed by a first order transition that localizes atoms into the triangular crystal order. This metastable hexatic phase has finite condensate fraction and it provides a natural explanation for the superflow in the supersolid grain boundaries.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0711.0098,
title = {Structure of metastable 2D liquid helium},
author = {V. Apaja and M. Saarela},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0711.0098},
year = {2009}
}