Evidence of supersolid quantum phase using quantum Monte Carlo methods
Jordi Boronat, Director of the department of Physics, together with M. C. Gordillo from the University of Pablo de Olavide in Seville found evidences of of a supersolid quantum phase with hexatic correlations using quantum Monte Carlo methods. They have published these results in the prestigious Physical Review Letters
Probably, one of the most exciting phases in Nature is the supersolid one, that is a system that at the same time has the spatial long-range order of a crystal and off-diagonal long range order typical of superfluids. Research trying to find the key signatures of this theoretically predicted state has been elusive for long time. The natural candidate for this state is Helium, which is known to remain liquid even in the limit of zero temperature. In bulk Helium it has not been possible to confirm its existence yet. However, Helium is strongly adsorbed on graphite forming successive layers of a quasi two-dimensional nature. Several experiments found that in the second layer of Helium on graphite there could be a supersolid phase but no theory was able to account for these observations. In our recent work, we identified this supersolid layer as a registered crystal to the first inert layer and, importantly, matching the coverage range observed in the experiments. Moreover, we found for the first time a superfluid hexatic phase induced by the corrugation with the first layer.
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