ISSN:
1573-7357
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Physics
Notes:
Abstract An unusual, newly observed, rotation-direction-dependent parity effect in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments on rotating3He-B in a state void of vortices is here first explained in terms of the broken time-inversion symmetry (T) for the surface layer of the3He-B. Two possible types of such surface structures, both with brokenT symmetry, for superfluid3He-B near the wall of the container are consistent with properties of the parity effect: one has superfluid A phase on the3He-B surface, while the other one is characterized by a nonzero counterflow of the spin componentsS=0 andS=+-1 of the superfluid along the normal to the wall, but with the total mass supercurrent and the total spin supercurrent into the wall vanishing identically. The first surface structure is in better agreement with details of the experiment and our numerical results, which demonstrate, for the first time, absolute stability of an A-phase layer on the3He-B boundary in a certain region of the phenomenological parameters for the surface tension. We find it also possible for a first-order surface-“wetting” transition to occur by the A-phase layer between two different A-phase states: one with little A phase, the other with well developed A phase. We estimate the magnitude of the new surface-orientating effects by comparing the NMR data with computed spin-wave spectra. New types of point vortices on the surface, boojums, are possible for the3He-B with superfluid A phase on the boundary: unlike the usual boojums on the surface of3He-A, only these novel boojums on the3He-B surface display isolated half-integer quanta of superfluid circulation.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00681910
