Funding
EMP is funded through the Horizon2020 programme of the European Commission.
Selected Publications

Path-Dependent Supercooling of the He3 Superfluid A-B Transition

Dmytro Lotnyk, Anna Eyal, Nikolay Zhelev, Abhilash Sebastian, Yefan Tian, Aldo Chavez, Eric Smith, John Saunders, Erich Mueller, Jeevak Parpia

We examine the discontinuous first-order superfluid 3 He A to B transition in the vicinity of the polycritical point (2.232 mK and 21.22 bar). We find path-dependent transitions: cooling at fixed pressure yields a well-defined transition line in the temperature-pressure plane, but this line can be reliably crossed by depressurizing at nearly constant temperature after transiting Tc at a higher pressure. This path dependence is not consistent with any of the standard B-phase nucleation mechanisms in the literature. This symmetry breaking transition is a potential simulator for first order transitions in the early Universe.


Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 215301 (2021)

doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.215301

arxiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.14044