Pressure-Driven Flow of Solid Helium

HELIUM , SOLID 1 Helium , Solid

Helium was first solidified at the famous Kamerlingh Onnes low-temperature physics laboratories in Leiden by W. H. Keesom [1] on June 25, 1926. The initial experiments by Sir Francis Simon at Oxford University and by Keesom and their collaborators focused on the melting curve, the specific heat, and the thermal conductivity of solid helium as a test of our early understanding of solids. These m...

Properties of Metastable Solid Helium Below the Normal Melting Pressure

In this note we report on simple estimates of the properties of metastable solid helium that is at a pressure below the normal melting pressure. We calculate the nucleation rate for formation of the liquid phase and estimate the “spinodal” pressure at which the solid becomes macroscopically unstable.

Investigating metastable hcp solid helium below its melting pressure

Superflow in Solid Helium

The small mass and significant zero point motion of solid He make it very different from its conventional counterparts. In the seventies it was suggested that at very low temperatures solid helium might flow like a superfluid while remaining a crystal. This hidden “supersolid” phase was subsequently almost ruled out both by experiments and theoretical calculations. However, in 2004 Kim and Chan...

Using Burnett Equations to Derive an Analytical Solution to Pressure-Driven Gas Flow and Heat Transfer in Micro-Couette Flow

The aim of the present study is deriving an analytical solution to incompressible thermal flow in a micro-Couette geometry in the presence of a pressure gradient using Burnett equations with first- and second-order slip boundary conditions. The lower plate of the micro-Couette structure is stationary, whereas the upper plate moves at a constant velocity. Non-dimensional axial velocity and tempe...