Freezing of He-4 and its liquid-solid interface from Density Functional Theory

Abstract

We show that, at high densities, fully variational solutions of solid-like type can be obtained from a density functional formalism originally designed for liquid 4He. Motivated by this finding, we propose an extension of the method that accurately describes the solid phase and the freezing transition of liquid 4He at zero temperature. The density profile of the interface between liquid and the (0001) surface of the 4He crystal is also investigated, and its surface energy evaluated. The interfacial tension is found to be in semiquantitative agreement with experiments and with other microscopic calculations. This opens the possibility to use unbiased DF methods to study highly non-homogeneous systems, like 4He interacting with strongly attractive impurities/substrates, or the nucleation of the solid phase in the metastable liquid.

5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. B

References in corpus (4)

• Pinning of quantized vortices in helium drop by dopant atoms and molecules
• The Debye-Waller Factor in solid 3He and 4He
• Surface location of sodium atoms attached to He-3 nanodroplets
• Probing vortices in 4He nanodroplets

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• Spinning superfluid helium-4 nanodroplets
• Femtosecond photoexcitation dynamics inside a quantum solvent
• Vortex arrays in nanoscopic superfluid helium droplets
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• Solvation of Intrinsic Positive Charge in Superfluid Helium
• Vorticity and quantum turbulence in the merging of superfluid Helium nanodroplets
• Vortex arrays in a rotating superfluid He-4 nanocylinder
• Coexistence of vortex arrays and surface capillary waves in spinning prolate superfluid He-4 nanodroplets
• First observation of bright solitons in bulk superfluid He-4
• The onset of nanoscale dissipation in superfluid He-4 at zero temperature: the role of vortex shedding and cavitation
• Nanoscopic jets and filaments of superfluid He-4 at zero temperature: a DFT study
• Thin He-4 films on alkali substrates: where do He-3 atoms bind?
• Merging of superfluid Helium nanodroplets with vortices
• Bound state of a He-3 atom at the interface of crystal and superfluid He-4