Surface of a He3 Crystal: Crossover from Quantum to Classical Behavior

I. A. Todoshchenko, H. Alles, H. J. Junes, A. Ya. Parshin, and V. Tsepelin
Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 175301 – Published 22 October 2004

Abstract

He3 crystals start to show facets on their surface only at about 100 mK, well below the roughening transition temperature. To understand the reason for that, we have performed the first quantitative investigation on the growth dynamics of the basic (110) facet at 60–110 mK. The obtained values of the step free energy suggest an extremely weak coupling of the solid-liquid interface to the crystal lattice which we show to be the result of quantum fluctuations of the interface. The renormalization group approach by Nozières and Gallet, modified to incorporate quantum fluctuations, explains well the temperature dependence of the step energy measured in this work and at ultralow temperatures by Tsepelin et al., where the coupling is known to be strong. We have thus shown that, paradoxically, the role of quantum fluctuations is at higher temperatures much larger than at low temperature.

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  • Received 13 August 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.93.175301

©2004 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

I. A. Todoshchenko, H. Alles, H. J. Junes, A. Ya. Parshin*, and V. Tsepelin

  • Low Temperature Laboratory, Helsinki University of Technology, P.O. Box 2200, FIN-02015 HUT, Finland

  • *Permanent address: P. L. Kapitza Institute, Kosygina 2, Moscow 119334, Russia.
  • Now at Department of Physics, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YB, United Kingdom.

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Issue

Vol. 93, Iss. 17 — 22 October 2004

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