Quantum whistling in superfluid 4He

Abstract

Fundamental considerations predict that macroscopic quantum systems such as superfluids and the electrons in superconductors will exhibit oscillatory motion when pushed through a small constriction. Here we report the observation of these oscillations between two reservoirs of superfluid 4He partitioned by an array of nanometer-sized apertures. They obey the Josephson frequency equation and are coherent amongst all the apertures. This discovery at the relatively high temperature of 2K (2000 times higher than related phenomena in 3He) may pave the way for a new class of practical rotation sensors of unprecedented precision.

6 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Nature

Cited by in corpus (19)

• Transition from phase slips to the Josephson effect in a superfluid 4He weak link
• A dipolar self-induced bosonic Josephson junction
• Momentum-Space Josephson Effects
• Phase-slippage and self-trapping in a self-induced bosonic Josephson junction
• A superfluid 4He interferometer operating near 2 K
• Quantum Monte Carlo measurement of the chemical potential of helium-4
• Flux locking a superfluid interferometer
• BKT-paired phase in coupled XY models
• Transition from synchronous to asynchronous superfluid phase slippage in an aperture array
• Observation of Momentum Space Josephson Effects
• Direct measurement of quantum phase gradients in superfluid 4He flow
• Thermally Driven Josephson Oscillations in Superfluid 4He
• Nonlinear standing waves in an array of coherently coupled Bose-Einstein condensates
• Phase-slip avalanches in the superflow of ${}^4$He through arrays of nanopores
• Microfluidic and Nanofluidic Cavities for Quantum Fluids Experiments
• Self-Adapted Josephson Oscillation of Dark-Bright Solitons under Constant Forces
• Dissipation in mesoscale superfluids
• Dissipative dynamics of the Josephson effect in the binary Bose-condensed mixtures
• The Dynamical Stripes in Spin-Orbit Coupled Bose-Einstein Condensates with Josephson Junctions