Quantum dislocations: the fate of multiple vacancies in two dimensional solid 4He

TL;DR

This study investigates how vacancies in two-dimensional solid helium-4 evolve into quantum dislocations, revealing that vacancies become mobile dislocations at higher concentrations, which impacts the understanding of supersolidity and lattice commensurability.

Contribution

It demonstrates that in 2D solid 4He, vacancies transform into quantum dislocations at high concentrations, challenging the traditional incommensurate versus commensurate distinction.

Findings

Crystalline order remains stable despite many vacancies.

Vacancies form bound states at low numbers, reducing order.

At higher vacancy numbers, vacancies turn into mobile dislocations.

Abstract

Defects are believed to play a fundamental role in the supersolid state of 4He. We have studied solid 4He in two dimensions (2D) as function of the number of vacancies n_v, up to 30, inserted in the initial configuration at rho = 0.0765 A^-2, close to the melting density, with the exact zero temperature Shadow Path Integral Ground State method. The crystalline order is found to be stable also in presence of many vacancies and we observe two completely different regimes. For small n_v, up to about 6, vacancies form a bound state and cause a decrease of the crystalline order. At larger n_v, the formation energy of an extra vacancy at fixed density decreases by one order of magnitude to about 0.6 K. In the equilibrated state it is no more possible to recognize vacancies because they mainly transform into quantum dislocations and crystalline order is found almost independent on how many vacancies have been inserted in the initial configuration. The one--body density matrix in this latter regime shows a non decaying large distance tail: dislocations, that in 2D are point defects, turn out to be mobile, their number is fluctuating, and they are able to induce exchanges of particles across the system mainly triggered by the dislocation cores. These results indicate that the notion of incommensurate versus commensurate state loses meaning for solid 4He in 2D, because the number of lattice sites becomes ill defined when the system is not commensurate. Crystalline order is found to be stable also in 3D in presence of up to 100 vacancies.