Nobel Prize in Physics to Lee, Osheroff and Richardson for Discovery of Superfluidity in ${}^{3}{He}$

DEC 01, 1996

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.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881571

Gloria B. Lubkin

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 ${}^{3}{He}$ 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 ${}^{3}{He}$ 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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Nobel Prize in Physics to Lee, Osheroff and Richardson for Discovery of Superfluidity in He 3

Nobel Prize in Physics to Lee, Osheroff and Richardson for Discovery of Superfluidity in ${}^{3}{He}$