Superfluidity of 4He nanoclusters in confinement

TL;DR

This study uses computer simulations to explore how helium-4 nanoclusters confined in spherical cavities exhibit unique structural and superfluid properties depending on substrate strength, revealing potential experimental signatures.

Contribution

It demonstrates how confinement and substrate interactions influence superfluidity and structure in helium-4 nanoclusters, highlighting new physical behaviors and measurement methods.

Findings

Superfluidity occurs only at low density on strongly attractive substrates.

Weak substrates allow formation of a superfluid two-shell structure.

Experimental momentum distribution measurements can detect these behaviors.

Abstract

Structure and superfluid response of nanoscale size helium-four clusters enclosed in spherical cavities are studied by computer simulations. The curved surface causes the formation of well-defined concentric shells, thus imparting to the system a very different structure from that of free standing clusters. On a strongly attractive substrate, superfluidity is only observed at low density, in the single layer coating the inner surface of the cavity. If the substrate is very weak (e.g., Li), on the other hand, a superfluid two-shell structure can form, whose physical properties interpolate between two and three dimensions. It is shown how experimental signatures of this physical behavior can be detected through measurements of the momentum distribution.