Effective Masses of Ions in Superfluid $^3$He-B

TL;DR

This paper predicts a significant enhancement of ion effective masses in superfluid $^3$He-B compared to $^4$He, providing detailed pressure dependence calculations and suggesting experimental feasibility at low temperatures.

Contribution

It presents a theoretical calculation of ion effective masses in superfluid $^3$He-B and highlights the potential for experimental observation of ballistic ion motion.

Findings

Ion masses in $^3$He-B are predicted to be 100 times larger than in $^4$He.

The effective mass depends on pressure in a calculable manner.

Ballistic ion motion can be experimentally studied at temperatures below 0.2-0.3 times the critical temperature.

Abstract

We show that ion masses in superfluid $^3$He ought to be enormously enhanced (by a factor of 100) as compared with the same ion masses in $^4$He measured at low temperature. We calculate precisely the dependence of the effective mass on pressure in $^3$He-B, and show that the coherent (ballistic) motion of ions in $^3$He-B can be studied experimentally at $ T < (0.3-0.2) T_c $.