David M. Lee, Douglas D. Osheroff and Robert C. Richardson have been awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of superfluidity in helium‐3. Their experiments, done in the low‐temperature physics lab at Cornell University in the early 1970s, showed that below 3 mK liquid has three new phases, with properties very different from the normal phase. Each of the three phases exhibits superfluidity, flowing with zero viscosity. All three are magnetic and have anisotropic behavior, exhibiting an entirely new category of macroscopically observable quantum behavior. Superfluid is the most sophisticated condensed matter system known of which we can claim a quantitative understanding, says Anthony Leggett (University of Illinois), who helped develop the theory of the new phases soon after their discovery.
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December 1996
December 01 1996
Nobel Prize in Physics to Lee, Osheroff and Richardson for Discovery of Superfluidity in Available to Purchase
Aquarter of a century ago three Cornell experimenters found that when they cooled 3He below 3 mK it had three different superfluid phases and behaved anisotropically.
Gloria B. Lubkin
Physics Today 49 (12), 17–19 (1996);
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Gloria B. Lubkin; Nobel Prize in Physics to Lee, Osheroff and Richardson for Discovery of Superfluidity in . Physics Today 1 December 1996; 49 (12): 17–19. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.881571
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