Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 135301 (2007) [4 pages]Superfluidity of Grain Boundaries in Solid 4HeReceived 7 February 2007; published 28 March 2007 By large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations we show that grain boundaries in 4He crystals are generically superfluid at low temperature, with a transition temperature of the order of ∼0.5 K at the melting pressure; nonsuperfluid grain boundaries are found only for special orientations of the grains. We also find that close vicinity to the melting line is not a necessary condition for superfluid grain boundaries, and a grain boundary in direct contact with the superfluid liquid at the melting curve is found to be mechanically stable and the grain-boundary superfluidity observed by Sasaki et al. [ Science 313 1098 (2006)] is not just a crack filled with superfluid. © 2007 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.135301
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.135301
PACS:
67.40.Kh, 05.30.Jp, 67.90.+z, 75.10.Jm
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