ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Data Journal

Measuring Bose-Einstein condensation in helium films using neutron spectroscopy.

Abstract: Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) plays an essential role and is widely observed in condensed matter. Superfluidity in liquid 4He is a manifestation of BEC of 4He atoms. In liquid 4He, the development of a ~8% condensate fraction of atoms with zero kinetic energy leads to an easily measurable decrease in the total kinetic energy by 11% - 12% as the liquid is cooled through the superfluid transition. A recently published theoretical paper has predicted that geometrical restriction may influence the transition temperature of BEC TBEC. Estimation for TBEC of 3 nm liquid 4He film gives an 8% ? 9% increase in TBEC compared to the bulk. We propose measurements on VESUVIO instrument of 4He kinetic energy in thin helium films as a function of temperature, so we can determine TBEC for films with different thicknesses and compare it with the theoretical predictions. Previous VESUVIO measurements on bulk liquid helium showed a sharp change in the atomic kinetic energy of ~7% at the superfluid transition and quite accurately reproduced the calculated and previously measured values.

Principal Investigator: Dr Oleg Kirichek
Experimenter: Professor Giovanni Romanelli
Experimenter: Dr Alexander Jones
Experimenter: Professor Roberto Senesi
Local Contact: Dr Matthew Krzystyniak
Experimenter: Dr Chris Lawson

DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.RB2610031

ISIS Experiment Number: RB2610031

Publisher: STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source

Data format: RAW/Nexus
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Data Citation

The recommended format for citing this dataset in a research publication is as:
[author], [date], [title], [publisher], [doi]

For Example:
Dr Oleg Kirichek et al; (2026): Measuring Bose-Einstein condensation in helium films using neutron spectroscopy., STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.RB2610031

Data is released under the CC-BY-4.0 license.