Browse Physics

Compared to classical solids, the quantum solid helium-4 can undergo a giant plastic deformation that is also reversible.

A torus of trapped cold atoms could be used as a rotation sensor.

Glitches in the rotation of pulsars cannot be explained by the conventional model of superfluid neutrons beneath the star’s crust.

Measurements of the heat capacity in two-dimensional helium-$3$ adsorbed on graphite provide further evidence of an unexpected liquid state at temperatures near absolute zero.

Coherent quantum states of different chirality have been formed and identified in the $A$ phase of superfluid helium-$3$, confirming previous theoretical predictions.

The first evidence of a superfluidlike state in solid helium came from 2004 experiments that, with improvements, now find no supersolidity.

What looks like supersolidity in helium could actually be the result of changes in helium’s elasticity, according to theory.

Measurements of drag coefficients in helium at low temperatures can improve understanding of turbulence in both classical and quantum fluids.

Macroscopic quantum properties of helium-$4$, one of the simplest and oldest elements in the universe, continue to puzzle and amaze scientists. Supertransport in solid helium-$4$ is the most elusive and controversial conundrum of all.

Nuclear magnetic resonance offers a glimmer of light at the end of quantum tunneling.

The size limits of superfluidity are explored in molecular hydrogen clusters.

Though often ignored, the normal component of a superfluid reveals much about turbulence in a two-fluid system.

New torsional oscillator experiments with plastically deformed helium show that what was thought to be defect-controlled supersolidity at low temperature may in fact be high-temperature softening from nonsuperfluid defect motion in the crystalline structure.

New measurements of the rigidity of solid helium show that the emergence of supersolidity is actually a crossover, rather than a true phase transition.

With the right configuration of laser beams, researchers could measure how much of an ultracold atomic gas is actually superfluid.

The existence, through statistical fluctuation, of arbitrarily large regions with a certain order in an otherwise disordered system, allow one to set bounds on various important thermodynamic properties.

Imaging and tracking of bubbles in liquid helium formed by individual electrons allows study of superfluid vortices, and may permit analysis of unusual ionic species in fluids.

Recent calculations of the properties of ultracold atoms have revealed how two-body interactions at very short distances determine essential properties of many-body systems.

A new phase of matter called a superglass may be possible, as shown by an investigation of the quantum mechanical analog of a classical hard sphere glass.

Images of vortex motion in superfluid helium reveal connections between quantum and classical turbulence and may lead to an understanding of complex flows in both superfluids and ordinary fluids.