Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Originally published in Science Express on 27 July 2006
Science 25 August 2006:
Vol. 313. no. 5790, pp. 1098 - 1100
DOI: 10.1126/science.1130879
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Reports

Superfluidity of Grain Boundaries and Supersolid Behavior

S. Sasaki,1* R. Ishiguro,1{dagger} F. Caupin,1 H. J. Maris,1,2 S. Balibar1*

When two communicating vessels are filled to a different height with liquid, the two levels equilibrate because the liquid can flow. We have looked for such equilibration with solid 4He. For crystals with no grain boundaries, we see no flow of mass, whereas for crystals containing several grain boundaries, we detect a mass flow. Our results suggest that the transport of mass is due to the superfluidity of grain boundaries.

1 Laboratoire de Physique Statistique de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure, Associé aux Universités Paris 6 et Paris 7 et au CNRS, 24 Rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France.
2 Department of Physics, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA.

{dagger} Present address: Graduate School of Science, Osaka City University, Osaka 558–8585, Japan.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ssasaki{at}lps.ens.fr (S.S.); balibar{at}lps.ens.fr (S.B.)

Read the Full Text


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Supersolidity.
M. H. W. Chan (2008)
Science 319, 1207-1209
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)