2005/12/31 by Massimo Boninsegni, M. Boninsegni, Nikolay Prokof’ev +3 · 1 citation
Chemistry · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Chemistry #Crystallography #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Materials science #Metastability #Phase (matter) #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #Thermodynamics #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.96.105301
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 105301 (2006)
openalex publication_date 2006/03/16 · arxiv created 2006/03/29 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We study different solid phases of 4He, by means of path integral Monte Carlo simulations based on a recently developed worm algorithm. Our study includes simulations that start off from a high- gas phase, which is then "quenched" down to T = 0.2 K. The low-T properties of the system crucially depend on the initial state. While an ideal hcp crystal is a clear-cut insulator, the disordered system freezes into a superglass, i.e., a metastable amorphous solid featuring off-diagonal long-range order and superfluidity.