Evidence for a Superglass State in Solid 4He

TL;DR

This study investigates the relaxation dynamics of solid helium-4, revealing glassy behavior and complex ultraslow evolution, suggesting a new form of supersolid with dynamical excitations influencing superfluid properties.

Contribution

It provides evidence for a superglass state in solid 4He, combining glassy dynamics with supersolid phenomena, and challenges simple excitation freeze-out models.

Findings

Relaxation times increase rapidly with the supersolid transition.

Complex synchronized ultraslow evolution towards equilibrium observed.

Inconsistency with simple excitation freeze-out transition.

Abstract

Although solid helium-4 (4He) may be a supersolid it also exhibits many phenomena unexpected in that context. We studied relaxation dynamics in the resonance frequency f(T) and dissipation D(T) of a torsional oscillator containing solid 4He. With the appearance of the "supersolid" state, the relaxation times within f(T) and D(T) began to increase rapidly together. More importantly, the relaxation processes in both D(T) and a component of f(T) exhibited a complex synchronized ultraslow evolution towards equilibrium. Analysis using a generalized rotational susceptibility revealed that, while exhibiting these apparently glassy dynamics, the phenomena were quantitatively inconsistent with a simple excitation freeze-out transition because the variation in f was far too large. One possibility is that amorphous solid 4He represents a new form of supersolid in which dynamical excitations within the solid control the superfluid phase stiffness.