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Originally published in Science Express on 2 September 2004
Science 24 September 2004:
Vol. 305. no. 5692, pp. 1921 - 1922
DOI: 10.1126/science.1103584
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Perspectives

PHYSICS:
Superfluidity in a Crystal?

Tony Leggett

The phenomenon of nonclassical rotational inertia (NCRI), in which a body does not rotate with its rotating container, has long been thought to be peculiar to Bose-Einstein condensates of certain liquids and gases, in particular liquid 4He. In his Perspective, Leggett discusses the experimental observation by Kim and Chan of similar behavior in solid 4He. The new results are most naturally interpreted as showing that the crystalline solid phase of 4He displays NCRI below about 230 mK, although the fraction of the system that behaves in this way is very small. This experiment presents a major challenge to our current theoretical understanding of solid helium.

The author is in the Department of Physics, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801, USA. E-mail: aleggett{at}uiuc.edu

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