Thinning of superfluid films below the critical point

Abstract

Experiments on ${}^4$He films reveal an attractive Casimir-like force at the bulk $\lambda$-point, and in the superfluid regime. Previous work has explained the magnitude of this force at the $\lambda$ transition and deep in the superfluid region but not the substantial attractive force immediately below the $\lambda$-point. Utilizing a simple mean-field calculation renormalized by critical fluctuations we obtain an effective Casimir force that is qualitatively consistent with the scaling function $\vartheta$ obtained by collapse of experimental data.

4 pages

References in corpus (2)

• Critical Casimir force in ${}^4$He films: confirmation of finite-size scaling
• Fluctuation-induced forces in periodic slabs: Breakdown of epsilon expansion at the bulk critical point and revised field theory

Cited by in corpus (7)

• The Casimir effect: from quantum to critical fluctuations
• Universal scaling functions of critical Casimir forces obtained by Monte Carlo simulations
• Monte Carlo simulation results for critical Casimir forces
• Thermodynamic Casimir effects involving interacting field theories with zero modes
• Diversity of critical behavior within a universality class
• Dynamic critical behavior of model A in films: Zero-mode boundary conditions and expansion near four dimensions
• Critical Casimir force in slab geometry with finite aspect ratio: analytic calculation above and below $T_c$