Cheng ZG, Beamish J, Fefferman AD, Souris F, Balibar S, Dauvois V. Helium mass flow through a solid-superfluid-solid junction.
PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2015;
114:165301. [PMID:
25955054 DOI:
10.1103/physrevlett.114.165301]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/06/2015] [Indexed: 06/04/2023]
Abstract
We report the results of flow experiments in which two chambers containing solid ^{4}He are connected by a superfluid Vycor channel. At low temperatures and pressures, mechanically squeezing the solid in one chamber produced a pressure increase in the second chamber, a measure of mass transport through our solid-superfluid-solid junction. This pressure response is very similar to the flow seen in recent experiments at the University of Massachusetts: it began around 600 mK, increased as the temperature was reduced, then decreased dramatically at a temperature, T_{d}, which depended on the ^{3}He impurity concentration. Our experiments indicate that the flow is limited by mass transfer across the solid-liquid interface near the Vycor ends, where the ^{3}He collects at low temperature, rather than by flow paths within the solid ^{4}He.
Collapse