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arXiv · 2311.00909

Planar Aerogel and Superfluid $^3$He, Structure and Transitions

Abstract

Anisotropic aerogel possesses structure which exhibits a strong influence over the composition and orientation of the order parameter of imbibed superfluid $^3$He. Computational studies have identified stretched aerogel with plane-like structures and compressed aerogel with nematic-like structures. Studies of the B phase of superfluid $^3$He in stretched aerogel display an enhanced nuclear magnetic susceptibility likely caused by Andreev bound states near plane-like impurity sites. We report further details on the influence of these planar structures on both magnetic and orbital orientation transitions. The orbital orientation transitions appear in both the B and A phases of stretched and compressed aerogels. These transitions result from a crossover of the superfluid coherence length with long and short length scale structure with the coherence length and are consequently magnetic field independent. Additionally, the apparent temperature-independence of the susceptibility of the B phase equal to that of the A phase in stretched aerogel, is in marked contrast with the field dependence of the superfluid A to B phase transition, indicating that it is a near-isentropic transition.

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J. W. Scott, M. D. Nguyen, D. Park, W. P. Halperin. 2023-11-02. Planar Aerogel and Superfluid $^3$He, Structure and Transitions. https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.00909

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