Superfluidity of metastable glassy bulk para-hydrogen at low temperature

Year: 2012

Authors: Osychenko O.N., Rota R., Boronat J.

Autors Affiliation: Departament de Física i Enginyeria Nuclear, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Campus Nord B4-B5, E-08034, Barcelona, Spain; Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Trento and INO-CNR BEC Center, I-38123 Povo, Trento, Italy

Abstract: Molecular para-hydrogen (p-H-2) has been proposed theoretically as a possible candidate for superfluidity, but the eventual superfluid transition is hindered by its crystallization. In this work, we study a metastable noncrystalline phase of bulk p-H-2 by means of the path integral Monte Carlo method in order to investigate at which temperature this system can support superfluidity. By choosing accurately the initial configuration and using a noncommensurate simulation box, we have been able to frustrate the formation of the crystal in the simulated system and to calculate the temperature dependence of the one-body density matrix and of the superfluid fraction. We observe a transition to a superfluid phase at temperatures around 1 K. The limit of zero temperature is also studied using the diffusion Monte Carlo method. Results for the energy, condensate fraction, and structure of the metastable liquid phase at T = 0 are reported and compared with the ones obtained for the stable solid phase.

Journal/Review: PHYSICAL REVIEW B

Volume: 85 (22)      Pages from: 224513  to: 224513

More Information: The authors acknowledge partial financial support from the DGI (Spain) Grant No. FIS2011-25275 and Generalitat de Catalunya Grant No. 2009SGR-1003.
KeyWords: molecular-hydrogen; Monte Carlo; state; H-2; clusters
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.85.224513

Citations: 22
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