D. Schmoranzer

On cavitation in liquid helium in a flow due to a vibrating quartz fork

Cavitation in normal and superfluid liquid He4 at saturated vapor pressure and slightly elevated pressures has been experimentally studied in a flow due to quartz forks vibrating at high amplitudes. Above the temperature- and pressure-dependent critical velocity, heterogeneous cavitation is observed both visually and electrically, as a breakdown of the resonance response of the fork. We compare our results with available experimental and discuss them using existing theoretical models. In particular, we show that thermal effects leading to local overheating of the vicinity of the fork have to be taken into account, especially in normal liquid He4.

Propagation of thermal excitations in a cluster of vortices in superfluid 3He-B

We describe the first measurement on Andreev scattering of thermal excitations from a vortex configuration with known density, spatial extent, and orientations in 3He-B superfluid. The heat flow from a blackbody radiator in equilibrium rotation at constant angular velocity is measured with two quartz tuning fork oscillators. One oscillator creates a controllable density of excitations at 0.2Tc base temperature and the other records the thermal response. The results are compared to numerical calculations of ballistic propagation of thermal quasiparticles through a cluster of rectilinear vortices.

Anomalous heat transport and condensation in convection of cryogenic helium

When a hot body A is thermally connected to a cold body B, the textbook knowledge is that heat flows from A to B. Here, we describe the opposite case in which heat flows from a colder but constantly heated body B to a hotter but constantly cooled body A through a two-phase liquid–vapor system. Specifically, we provide experimental evidence that heat flows through liquid and vapor phases of cryogenic helium from the constantly heated, but cooler, bottom plate of a Rayleigh–Bénard convection cell to its hotter, but constantly cooled, top plate. The bottom plate is heated uniformly, and the top plate is cooled by heat exchange with liquid helium maintained at 4.2 K. Additionally, for certain experimental conditions, a rain of helium droplets is detected by small sensors placed in the cell at about one-half of its height.

Mutual interactions of oscillating quartz tuning forks in superfluid 4He

The quartz tuning fork has recently become a popular experimental tool for investigations of both classical and quantum turbulence in cryogenic helium. Its increased use in low-temperature experiments and a number of puzzling results obtained in the past have led to many questions concerning the interaction of multiple tuning forks or the interaction of tuning forks with other oscillators. We report measurements performed in He II at low temperatures around 360 mK, on the mutual interaction of tuning forks placed in the same volume of fluid, and examine the responsible mechanisms in an effort to discriminate between acoustic coupling and interaction via quantized vortices. To this end, the interaction of two tuning forks is investigated by analyzing their recorded resonance curves, looking for any nonelectrical crosstalk. Further, the force-velocity characteristics of a detector tuning fork are measured for different operating velocities of a generator tuning fork. As a complementary measurement, the inte...