A non-perturbative approach to freezing of superfuid 4He in density functional theory

Abstract

Freezing of various classical liquids is successfully described by density functional theory (DFT). On the other hand, so far no report has been published that DFT describes the freezing of superfuid 4He correctly. In fact, DFT gives too stable solid phase and the superfuid phase does not exist at finite positive pressures within a second order perturbation. In this paper we try a non-perturbative version of DFT, that is modified weighted density approximation (MWDA) to go beyond second order perturbation for the freezing of superfuid 4He. Via an exact zero temperature quantum Monte-Carlo (QMC) method we have computed the equation of state and the compressibility of superfuid 4He. By utilizing a recently introduced analytic continuation method (the GIFT method), we have obtained also density response functions at different densities from QMC imaginary time correlation functions. Contrary to second order perturbation, by employing these QMC data as DFT input we find a too stable superfuid phase, preventing freezing around the experimentally observed freezing pressure. We find the same pathological behavior by using another model energy functional of superfuid 4He (Orsay-Trento model). We conclude that the straightforward MWDA calculation gives such a poor result when liquid-gas transition is present.