Sound Experiments on Superfluidity of 3He in Highly Porous Aerogels

Abstract

We have carried out sound experiments on superfluid 3 He in three highly porous aerogels with different porosities. Two of the acoustic cells contain aerogels inside the pores in roughly sintered silver powder to avoid the vibration of the aerogel. In these acoustic cells we have detected fourth sound, and extracted the superfluid density from the fourth sound velocity. The effect of the sintered silver on superfluid 3 He was examined by using another acoustic cell which contains the sintered silver without aerogel. The size of the pores in the sintered silver was large enough not to show the size effect of superfluid 3 He and small enough to observe fourth sound of 3 He. In another cell without sintered silver, we have observed second-sound-like signal. The superfluid transition temperatures of 3 He are suppressed more in higher density aerogel. The aerogel density dependence of the suppression of the superfluid transition temperature of 3 He in aerogel can be explained qualitatively by the simple s-wave scattering approximation. However, the superfluid density shows quite different pressure-dependence in different porous aerogels. The reason of this phenomenon is not understood yet.