The Role of Substrate Corrugations in Helium Monolayer Solidification

TL;DR

This study uses path-integral Monte Carlo to analyze how substrate corrugations influence the phase behavior of helium monolayers on graphite, revealing the conditions for solidification and the absence of superfluidity.

Contribution

It demonstrates that substrate corrugations induce a commensurate solid phase and clarifies the phase diagram, contrasting with previous suggestions of superfluidity in the first helium layer.

Findings

Substrate corrugations lead to a stable $\,\sqrt{3} \times \sqrt{3}$ commensurate solid phase.

No evidence of a first layer liquid or superfluid phase was found.

The phase diagram and thermodynamic properties align with experimental observations.

Abstract

We investigate the first layer of helium adsorbed on graphite with path-integral Monte Carlo, examining the role of substrate corrugations on the phase diagram. When no corrugations are present, the equilibrium state of the system is a liquid phase, with solidification occurring only under compression but before layer promotion. We determine the solid-liquid coexistence region and compare our results to recent Green's function Monte Carlo calculations on the same system. When substrate corrugations are included, we find that the equilibrium phase is the $\sqrt 3 \times \sqrt3$ commensurate solid phase that is well known from experiment. The melting behavior, heat capacity, and single particle binding energy are determined and compared to experiment. We further find that for densities below the commensurate coverage, the low temperature phase of the system consists of solid clusters in coexistence with coalesced vacancies. We find no first layer liquid phase and so no superfluidity in this layer, in contrast to some rather recent suggestions.