2010/03/24 by David Pekker, Gil Refael, Eugene Demler · 22 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Condensed matter physics #Coupling (piping) #Materials science #Mathematical physics #Phase (matter) #Phase transition #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum mechanics #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #Renormalization group #Superfluidity #cond-mat.quant-gas
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.105.085302
published in Physical Review Letters 105(8), 085302 (American Physical Society) · 4+epsilon pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2010/03/24 · openalex publication_date 2010/08/20 · arxiv updated 2011/10/17 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We consider a stack of weakly Josephson coupled superfluid layers with c-axis disorder in the form of random superfluid stiffnesses and vortex fugacities in each layer as well as random interlayer coupling strengths. In the absence of disorder this system has a 3D XY type superfluid-normal phase transition as a function of temperature. We develop a functional renormalization group to treat the effects of disorder, and demonstrate that the disorder results in the smearing of the superfluid-normal phase transition via the formation of a Griffiths phase. Remarkably, in the Griffiths phase, the emergent power-law distribution of the interlayer couplings gives rise to a sliding Griffiths superfluid, with a finite stiffness in the a-b direction along the layers, and a vanishing stiffness perpendicular to it.