Researchers Cook Up a Baked Alaska in Superfluid Helium‐3

The conventional recipe for a baked Alaska calls for meringue, solid ice cream and a moderate degree of culinary skill. The baked Alaskas recently observed by Peter Schiffer, Douglas Osheroff and coworkers at Stanford University involve the superfluid phases of helium‐3, sample cells with ultrasmooth walls and a sprinkling of cosmic rays. Their results strongly support the “baked Alaska” model that was devised to solve the long‐standing puzzle of how the B phase of superfluid $He3$ can possibly nucleate in a sample of A phase. Also, their techniques for the first time allow the study of an anisotropic BCS superfluid in the lowtemperature limit in the absence of a strong magnetic field.