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We report studies of solid helium contained inside a torsional oscillator, at temperatures between 1.07K and 1.87K. We grew single crystals inside the oscillator using commercially pure $^4$He and $^3$He-$^4$He mixtures containing 100 ppm…
We report low temperature measurements of bulk solid $^4$He in a two-frequency compound torsional oscillator with both annular and open cylinder sample geometries. The oscillators were designed to suppress period shifts arising from all…
We report torsional oscillator supersolid studies of highly disordered samples of solid $^4$He. In an attempt to approach the amorphous or glassy state of the solid, we prepare our samples by rapid freezing from the normal phase of liquid…
Superfluidity, liquid flow without friction, is familiar in helium. The first evidence for "supersolidity", its analogue in quantum solids, came from recent torsional oscillator (TO) measurements involving 4-He. At temperatures below 200…
Over the last five years several experimental groups have reported anomalies in the temperature dependence of the period and amplitude of a torsional oscillator containing solid $^4$He. We model these experiments by assuming that $^4$He is…
In these torsional oscillator experiments the samples of solid $^4$He were characterized by measuring their thermal conducitvity. Polycrystalline samples of helium of either high isotopic purity or natural concentration of $^3$He were grown…
A decrease in the rotational period observed in torsional oscillator measurements was recently taken as a possible indication of a supersolid state of helium. We reexamine this interpretation and note that the decrease in the rotation…
We report results of torsional oscillator (TO) experiments on solid $^4$He at temperatures above 1K. We have previously found that single crystals, once disordered, show some mobility (decoupled mass) even at these rather high temperatures.…
Torsional oscillator experiments on solid 4He show frequency changes which suggest mass decoupling, but the onset is broad and is accompanied by a dissipation peak. We have measured the elastic shear modulus over a broad frequency range,…
A torsional oscillator study of solid para-hydrogen has been carried out down to 20 mK in search for evidence of superfluidity. This work was inspired by the observation of the supersolid phase in solid He-4. We found evidence of a possible…
Solid He-4 is viewed as a nearly perfect Debye solid. Yet, recent calorimetry measurements by the PSU group (J. Low Temp. Phys. 138, 853 (2005) and Nature 449, 1025 (2007)) indicate that at low temperatures the specific heat has both cubic…
X-ray diffraction experiments show that solid 4He grown in aerogel is highly polycrystalline, with a hcp crystal structure (as in bulk) and a crystallite size of approximately 100 nm. In contrast to the expectation that the highly…
Torsional oscillator experiments involving solid $^{4}$He confined in the nanoscale pores of Vycor glass showed anomalous frequency changes at temperatures below 200 mK. These were initially attributed to decoupling of some of the helium's…
The elastic properties of hcp $^4$He samples have been shown to display various anomalies. The elastic shear modulus stiffens and the moment of rotational inertia drops when the temperature is lowered below $\sim$ 0.2 K. The relation…
The discovery by Kim and Chan (KC) of an anomalous decrease in the period of torsional oscillators (TO) containing samples of solid $^4$He at temperatures below 0.2 K was initially interpreted as a superfluid-like decoupling of a fraction…
We report a study of the temperature and stress dependence of the friction associated with a relative motion of two masses of solid $^4$He in contact. The situation where "two masses" coupled only by friction exists emerges spontaneously…
Recent experiments showed that the shear modulus of solid 4He stiffens in the same temperature range (below 200 mK) where mass decoupling and supersolidity have been inferred from torsional oscillator measurements. The two phenomena are…
The resonant period drop observed at low temperatures in torsional oscillators containing solid helium had been interpreted as a signature of supersolid. However, it was found that the shear modulus increase found in solid helium at the…
Using a high-sensitivity torsional oscillator technique, we mapped the rotational and relaxational dynamics of solid helium-4 throughout the parameter range of the proposed supersolidity. We found evidence that the same microscopic…
Solid He4 is viewed as a nearly perfect Debye solid. Yet, recent calorimetry indicates that its low-temperature specific heat has both cubic and linear contributions. These features appear in the same temperature range ($T \sim 200$ mK)…