Cavitation pressure in liquid helium

When an electron (or positronium atom) is injected into liquid helium with nearly zero energy, a bubble quickly forms around it. This phenomenon (which also occurs in liquid hydrogen, liquid neon and possibly in solid helium) lowers the mobility of the electron to a value similar to that for a positive ion. We estimate the radius of the bubble at zero pressure and temperature based on the zero point energy of the electron. If the liquid is held in a state of negative pressure...

Presented in this paper are measurements of an optomechanical device in which various acoustic modes of a sample of superfluid helium couple to a fiber-based optical cavity. In contrast with recent work on the paraxial acoustic mode confined by the cavity mirrors, we focus specifically on the acoustic modes associated with the helium surrounding the cavity. This paper provides a framework for understanding how the acoustic modes depend on device geometry. The acoustic modes a...

We describe a recently realized experiment producing the most spherical cavitation bubbles today. The bubbles grow inside a liquid from a point-plasma generated by a nanosecond laser pulse. Unlike in previous studies, the laser is focussed by a parabolic mirror, resulting in a plasma of unprecedented symmetry. The ensuing bubbles are sufficiently spherical that the hydrostatic pressure gradient caused by gravity becomes the dominant source of asymmetry in the collapse and reb...

The resonant frequencies of three-dimensional microwave cavities are explicitly dependent on the dielectric constant of the material filling the cavity, making them an ideal system for probing material properties. In particular, dielectric constant measurements allow one to extract the helium density through the Clausius-Mossotti relation. By filling a cylindrical aluminum cavity with superfluid helium, we make precision measurements of the dielectric constant of liquid $^4$H...

We have produced and observed metastable solid helium-4 below its melting pressure between 1.1 K and 1.4 K. This is achieved by an intense pressure wave carefully focused inside a crystal of known orientation. An accurate density map of the focal zone is provided by an optical interferometric technique. Depending on the sample, minimum density achieved at focus corresponds to pressures between 2 and 4 bar below the static melting pressure. Beyond, the crystal undergoes an une...

On the basis of the two-fluid hydrodynamics, an analogue of the famous Rayleigh-Plesse equation for the dynamics of a spherical bubble in superfluid helium is obtained. The mass flow velocity $v$ and the velocity of the normal component $v_{n}$ were chosen as independent variables. Due to the two-fluid nature of HeII, the cross terms in the evolution equation for the boundary position $\ R(t)$ appeared, which were absent in classical Rayleigh-Plesset equation in ordinary flui...

Many experiments in liquid Helium, such as the optical imaging of exploding electron bubbles, which enables research on individual particles under applied conditions, involve the usage of ultrasound generated by piezoelectric transducers. Previous studies either use planar transducers, which limits the maximum sound intensity and the spatial resolution, or curved transducers, which only allow observations at fixed foci and make it difficult to apply uniform electric fields. I...

The classical Blake threshold indicates the onset of quasistatic evolution leading to cavitation for gas bubbles in liquids. When the mean pressure in the liquid is reduced to a value below the vapor pressure, the Blake analysis identifies a critical radius which separates quasistatically stable bubbles from those which would cavitate. In this work, we analyze the cavitation threshold for radially symmetric bubbles whose radii are slightly less than the Blake critical radius,...

We make comments on Kim and Chan's [{\it Phys. Rev. Lett.} 97, 115302 (2006)] letter. Based on their pressure-dependent measurements (by a torsional oscillator technique), we propose that the {\it supersolid} fraction ($\rho_s/\rho$) might be relevant to an sound absorption or attenuation (fluctuations of pressure waves) in microscopic domain since there is no apparent change in $T_c$ with pressure.

We report the experimental studies of a parametric excitation of a second sound (SS) by a first sound (FS) in a superfluid helium in a resonance cavity. The results on several topics in this system are presented: (i) The linear properties of the instability, namely, the threshold, its temperature and geometrical dependencies, and the spectra of SS just above the onset were measured. They were found to be in a good quantitative agreement with the theory. (ii) It was shown that...