Texture of superfluid 3He probed by a Wigner solid

Phys Rev Lett. 2006 Oct 20;97(16):165303. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.165303. Epub 2006 Oct 20.

Abstract

The resistivity of the Wigner solid floating on the free surface of superfluid 3He has been measured in both the A and B phases down to 200 microK in the magnetic field. The resistivity in the A phase shows the asymptotic behavior to the temperature-square dependence at low temperatures. The temperature dependence is successfully explained by the uniform l[over] texture oriented normal to the surface and by the specular scattering of quasiparticles excited along l[over] vector. In the B phase, the resistivity exhibits the exponential decrease at low temperatures. The steep increase of the resistivity observed at high magnetic field is attributable to the nonuniform texture of the field-distorted order parameter induced near the surface.