Major physics breakthrough in understanding supersolidity
December 5, 2007Physicists at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, have made a major advance in the understanding of what appears to be a new state of matter.
Working in the highly specialized field of quantum fluids and solids, Prof. John Beamish, chair of the Department of Physics, and PhD student James Day, report their findings in a paper to be published in the science journal Nature on Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2007. Beamish and Day are the only researchers in Canada conducting experimental research in this area of fundamental physics.
At very low temperatures, helium gas turns into a liquid. Put under extreme pressure the liquid turns into a solid. Physicists have been manipulating solid helium so they can study its unusual behaviour.
In 2004, a research team at Penn State university in the United States, led by Dr. Moses Chan, electrified the physics world when it announced that it may have discovered an entirely new state of matter – supersolidity. The team made the discovery by cooling solid helium to an extremely low temperature and oscillating the material at different speeds. They found that the particles behaved in a way not seen before, which suggested it might show the “perpetual flow” seen in superfluids like liquid helium.
Day and Dr. Beamish have taken this research a different direction. In an experiment not done before, they cooled the solid helium and manipulated the material another way – by shearing it elastically. In doing so, they found that the solid behaved in an entirely new and unexpected way – it became much stiffer at the lowest temperatures.
“The experimental results from the University of Alberta are remarkable,” Dr. Chan said. “Namely, Professor Beamish and his student James Day found that the shear modulus of solid helium increases by 20% when it is cooled below 0.25K.
“Furthermore, the temperature dependence of the shear modulus seems to track the period change seen in torsional oscillator. It seems the two phenomena are related and probably have the same mechanical origin.
“This is an important breakthrough since the original discovery,” Chan said.
Other physicists around the world are also studying the implications. Through this discovery, Beamish and Day have significantly added to the body of knowledge about the fundamental states of matter allowed by nature.
Source: University of Alberta
-
Supersolid helium unlikely
May 17, 2011 |
4.5 / 5 (2) |
0
-
A crack in the case for supersolids
Jun 21, 2010 |
4.3 / 5 (4) |
0
-
Searching for a solid that flows like a liquid
Feb 03, 2012 |
4.3 / 5 (7) |
16
-
Method that can validate nuclear collision models benefits IAEA
Jan 25, 2012 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Choreographing dance of electrons offers promise in pursuit of quantum computers
Jan 12, 2012 |
5 / 5 (3) |
1
-
Engineers build first sub-10-nm carbon nanotube transistor
Feb 01, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (31) |
30
-
Something old, something new: Evolution and the structural divergence of duplicate genes
Jan 31, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (7) |
1
-
The hidden nanoworld of ice crystals: Revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers
Jan 30, 2012 |
5 / 5 (3) |
1
-
Stock market network reveals investor clustering
Jan 27, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (23) |
8
-
Of microchemistry and molecules: Electronic microfluidic device synthesizes biocompatible probes
Jan 26, 2012 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
-
What would happen when a jet travelling at Mach 10 experiences engine failure
1 hour ago
-
Rust from my microwave ruined a nice bowl of soup and also my day
3 hours ago
-
gas leaks in space
7 hours ago
-
Weight required to balance a boom stand?
8 hours ago
-
Questions about Equivalence principle & Einstein Elevator?
10 hours ago
-
Kinetic energy of gas
11 hours ago
- More from Physics Forums - General Physics
More news stories
Explained: Sigma
It's a question that arises with virtually every major new finding in science or medicine: What makes a result reliable enough to be taken seriously? The answer has to do with statistical significance -- but ...
Feb 09, 2012 |
5 / 5 (19) |
76
Quantum physicist explains $100K offer for proof scaled-up quantum computing is impossible
(PhysOrg.com) -- MIT researcher Scott Aaronson has certainly riled the physics community with his offer this past Friday, of $100,000 to anyone who can prove that scaled-up quantum computing is impossible. ...
Diamond light, brighter than the sun
Its the size of five football pitches and generates light 10 billion times brighter than the sun. As the Diamond Light Source celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, Penny Bailey visits one of the ...
Feb 07, 2012 |
4.3 / 5 (7) |
18
|
Physicists 'record' magnetic breakthrough
An international team of scientists has demonstrated a revolutionary new way of magnetic recording which will allow information to be processed hundreds of times faster than by current hard drive technology.
Feb 07, 2012 |
4.5 / 5 (41) |
14
|
Hints of the Higgs - papers are submitted
Back in December 2011, the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN presented some exciting results that provided tantalising hints of the Higgs boson.
Feb 08, 2012 |
4.1 / 5 (7) |
10
Google might launch Drive for cloud storage soon
(PhysOrg.com) -- Google's next big move, according to the Wall Street Journal, is a cloud storage service called Drive. Hardly first to the plate, Google is simply catching up to introducing its cloud reposi ...
Walney offshore wind farm is world's biggest (for now)
(PhysOrg.com) -- The Walney wind farm on the Irish Sea--characterized by high tides, waves and windy weather--officially opened this week. The farm is treated in the press as a very big deal as the Walney ...
Latin America mining boom clashes with conservation
Latin America is experiencing a mining boom as prices rise fuelled by a hike in global demand, but the region is also being hit by a wave of violent protests, strikes and rallies by environmentalists.
Love a click away in Indonesia's Twitter Republic
He was a geeky kid from Yogyakarta, she a glamorous city girl in Jakarta. In a country with one of the world's most vibrant social networking scenes they fell in love on Twitter.
Europeans protest controversial Internet pact
Tens of thousands of people marched in protests in more than a dozen European cities Saturday against a controversial anti-online piracy pact that critics say could curtail Internet freedom.
Navy to begin tests on electromagnetic railgun prototype launcher
The Office of Naval Research (ONR)'s Electromagnetic (EM) Railgun program will take an important step forward in the coming weeks when the first industry railgun prototype launcher is tested at a facility ...
Dec 05, 2007
Rank: 1.2 / 5 (6)
As the evidence can serve the fact, so far only torsional-oscillator experiments with porous Vycor or gold blocks explicitly show a signal %u2013 other studies of direct flow plus neutron and X-ray scattering experiments show no evidence for supersolidity and attempts to look for a thermodynamic signature have so far not been successful.
Dec 05, 2007
Rank: 1.6 / 5 (5)
http://physicswor...int/1528
Dec 05, 2007
Rank: 2 / 5 (4)