Defect formation in Quench-cooled superfluid phase transition

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Volume Title

A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

1998

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Mcode

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en

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Physical Review Letters, Volume 80, issue 7, pp. 1465-1468

Abstract

We use neutron absorption in rotating 3He−B to heat locally a ∼100−μm−size volume into normal phase. When the heated region cools back in microseconds, vortex lines are formed. We record with NMR the number of lines vs the applied superflow velocity and compare to the Kibble-Zurek theory of vortex-loop freeze-out from a random network of defects. The measurements confirm the calculated loop-size distribution and indicate that the superfluid state itself forms as a patchwork of competing A− and B−phase blobs. The consequences to the A→B transition in supercooled 3He−A are discussed.

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Keywords

defect formation, phase transition

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Citation

Ruutu, V M, Eltsov, V B, Krusius, M, Makhlin, Y G, Plaçais, B & Volovik, G E 1998, ' Defect formation in Quench-cooled superfluid phase transition ', Physical Review Letters, vol. 80, no. 7, pp. 1465-1468 . https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.80.1465