Strong-coupling corrections to hard domain walls in superfluid He3−B

Abstract

Domain walls in superfluid $^{3}\mathrm{He}\text{\ensuremath{-}}B$ have gained renewed interest in light of experimental progress on confining helium in nanofabricated geometries. Here, we study the effect of strong-coupling corrections on domain wall width and interfacial tension by determining self-consistent solutions to spatially-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equations. We find that the formation of domain walls is generally energetically favored in strong coupling over weak coupling. Calculations were performed over a wide range of temperatures and pressures, showing decreasing interface energy with increasing temperature and pressure. This has implications for the observability of such domain walls in $^{3}\mathrm{He}\text{\ensuremath{-}}B$, which are of both fundamental interest and form the basis for spatially-modulated pair-density wave states, when stabilized by strong confinement.