Superfluidity of grain boundaries and supersolid behavior.
When two communicating vessels are filled to a different height with liquid, the two levels equilibrate because the liquid can flow. We have looked for such equilibration with solid (4)He. For crystals with no grain boundaries, we see no flow of mass, whereas for crystals containing several grain boundaries, we detect a mass flow. Our results suggest that the transport of mass is due to the superfluidity of grain boundaries.
Sasaki
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Laboratoire de Physique Statistique de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure, Associé aux Universités Paris 6 et Paris 7 et au CNRS, 24 Rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France. ssasaki@lps.ens.fr
Ishiguro
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Caupin
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Maris
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Balibar
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