The molecular nature of superfluidity: Viscosity of helium from quantum stochastic molecular dynamics simulations over real trajectories

2024/09/27 by Phil Attard, Attard, Phil · 2 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph) #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas) #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #Spacecraft and Cryogenic Technologies #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2409.19036

openalex publication_date 2024/09/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Using quantum equations of motion for interacting bosons, stochastic molecular dynamics simulations with quantized momenta are performed for Lennard-Jones helium-4. The viscosity of the quantum liquid is significantly less than that of the classical liquid, being almost 5 times smaller at the lowest temperature studied. The classical and quantum liquids are identical except for Bose-Einstein condensation, which pinpoints the molecular mechanism for superfluidity. The results rely on the existence of stochastic but real particle trajectories, which has implications for the interpretation of quantum mechanics.

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• Quantum Monte Carlo in Classical Phase Space with the Wigner-Kirkwood Commutation Function. Results for the Saturation Liquid Density of ⁴He
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