Superfluidity of helium
Superfluidez del helio
- Date
- 1937-1938 · confidence high
- Place
- Institute for Physical Problems, Moscow, Russia
- Credited to
- Pyotr Kapitsa; John Allen; Don Misener
- People
- 👤 Don Misener1911–1996👤 Piotr Kapitsa1894–1984
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Below 2.17 K liquid helium flows without viscosity, climbs up walls and passes through the finest capillaries. The second macroscopic quantum phenomenon, explained by Landau (1941) as condensation and collective excitations.
Kapitsa (Moscow) and Allen and Misener (Cambridge) published in the same issue of Nature (January 1938); only Kapitsa received the Nobel Prize (1978).
What it led to
- Landau's theory of superfluids and quasiparticles
- Link with Bose-Einstein condensation
- Superfluidity of helium-3 (1972) and neutron stars
- Advanced cryogenics (dilution refrigerators)
Built on
- Bose-Einstein statistics1924
- Liquefaction of helium
- Lambda anomaly in specific heat (Keesom)
Made possible
- Dilution refrigerator
- Superfluid gyroscopes