Spatially modulated superfluid phase of 3He in thin slabs · revision history

Revision 2

Accepted · core change · record

Changes against revision 1:

Title
Spatially modulated superfluid phase of 3He in thin slabs
Plain
When helium-3 is confined in a slab about one ten-thousandth of a centimeter thick, theory predicts a superfluid phase whose order varies periodically along the slab, like stripes. Experiments disagree on whether this phase exists and what form it takes.
Precise · changed · core
Revision 1: In $3\mathrm{He}$ confined to slabs of thickness $D \sim 1e-4\,\mathrm{cm}$ with pair-breaking walls, quasiclassical theory predicts a stripe phase (Vorontsov and Sauls 2007) of periodic domain walls in a planar-distorted B order parameter, between the A and B phases. Determine whether a modulated phase exists, its period and its region in $\left(D, P, T\right)$, and distinguish a stripe phase from a pair-density-wave state and from a polar-distorted B phase with pinned domain walls. An answer is a phase diagram with direct evidence of the modulation.
Revision 2: In $3\mathrm{He}$ confined to slabs of thickness $D \sim 10^{-4}\,\mathrm{cm}$ with pair-breaking walls, quasiclassical theory predicts a stripe phase (Vorontsov and Sauls 2007) of periodic domain walls in a planar-distorted B order parameter, between the A and B phases. Determine whether a modulated phase exists, its period and its region in $\left(D, P, T\right)$, and distinguish a stripe phase from a pair-density-wave state and from a polar-distorted B phase with pinned domain walls. An answer is a phase diagram with direct evidence of the modulation.
Settled by
NMR line shapes or flow measurements in slabs of several thicknesses whose features match the predicted modulation period and its D dependence.
Kind
well-posed
Answer type
classification
References
(empty)
Literature status
contested
Status note · changed
Revision 1: NMR in a 1.1e-4 cm slab (Levitin et al. 2019) gave evidence for a stripe phase; a nanofluidic resonator experiment (Shook et al. 2020) claimed a pair-density-wave state, and a 2020 Comment by Levitin et al. disputed that interpretation.
Revision 2: NMR in a $1.1 \times 10^{-4}$ cm slab (Levitin et al. 2019) gave evidence for a stripe phase; a nanofluidic resonator experiment (Shook et al. 2020) claimed a pair-density-wave state, and a 2020 Comment by Levitin et al. disputed that interpretation.
Posed since
2007

Decisions