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Evidence for a superglass state in solid 4He

Cornell Affiliated Author(s)

Author

B. Hunt
E. Pratt
V. Gadagkar
M. Yamashita
A.V. Balatsky
J.C. Davis

Abstract

Although solid helium-4 ( 4He) may be a supersolid, it also exhibits many phenomena unexpected in that context. We studied relaxation dynamics in the resonance frequency f(T) and dissipation D(T) of a torsional oscillator containing solid 4He. With the appearance of the "supersolid" state, the relaxation times within f(T) and D(T) began to increase rapidly together. More importantly, the relaxation processes in both D(T) and a component of f(T) exhibited a complex synchronized ultraslow evolution toward equilibrium. Analysis using a generalized rotational susceptibility revealed that, while exhibiting these apparently glassy dynamics, the phenomena were quantitatively inconsistent with a simple excitation freeze-out transition because the variation in f was far too large. One possibility is that amorphous solid 4He represents a new form of supersolid in which dynamical excitations within the solid control the superfluid phase stiffness. © 2009 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Date Published

Journal

Science

Volume

324

Issue

5927

Number of Pages

632-636,

URL

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-65549111003&doi=10.1126%2fscience.1169512&partnerID=40&md5=dc7bb2349f4f6e1678cb34811b53627c

DOI

10.1126/science.1169512

Group (Lab)

J.C. Seamus Davis Group

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