Identification of superfluid phases of He3 in uniformly isotropic 98.2% aerogel

J. Pollanen, J. I.A. Li, C. A. Collett, W. J. Gannon, W. P. Halperin

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

22 Scopus citations

Abstract

Superfluid He3 confined to high porosity silica aerogel is the paradigm system for understanding impurity effects in unconventional superconductors. However, a crucial first step has been elusive: exact identification of the microscopic states of the superfluid in the presence of quenched disorder. Using a new class of highly uniform aerogel materials, we report pulsed nuclear magnetic resonance experiments that demonstrate definitively that the two observed superfluid states in aerogel are impure versions of the isotropic and axial p-wave states. The theoretically predicted destruction of long-range orbital order (Larkin-Imry-Ma effect) in the impure axial state is not observed.

Original languageEnglish
Article number195301
JournalPhysical Review Letters
Volume107
Issue number19
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 31 2011

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Physics and Astronomy (all)

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Identification of superfluid phases of He3 in uniformly isotropic 98.2% aerogel'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this