Helium-3 is a light, stable isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron. Other than protium, helium-3 is the only stable isotope of any element with more protons than neutrons. Helium-3 was discovered in 1939.
Superfluid helium-4 is the superfluid form of helium-4, an isotope of the element helium. A superfluid is a state of matter in which matter behaves like a fluid with zero viscosity. The substance, which looks like a normal liquid, flows without friction past any surface, which allows it to continue to circulate over obstructions and through pores in containers which hold it, subject only to its own inertia.
Liquid helium is a physical state of helium at very low temperatures at standard atmospheric pressures. Liquid helium may show superfluidity.
Douglas Dean Osheroff is an American physicist known for his work in experimental condensed matter physics, in particular for his co-discovery of superfluidity in Helium-3. For his contributions he shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics along with David Lee and Robert C. Richardson. Osheroff is currently the J. G. Jackson and C. J. Wood Professor of Physics, emeritus, at Stanford University.
A 3He/4He dilution refrigerator is a cryogenic device that provides continuous cooling to temperatures as low as 2 mK, with no moving parts in the low-temperature region. The cooling power is provided by the heat of mixing of the helium-3 and helium-4 isotopes.
Sir Anthony James Leggett is a British-American theoretical physicist and professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Leggett is widely recognised as a world leader in the theory of low-temperature physics, and his pioneering work on superfluidity was recognised by the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics. He has shaped the theoretical understanding of normal and superfluid helium liquids and strongly coupled superfluids. He set directions for research in the quantum physics of macroscopic dissipative systems and use of condensed systems to test the foundations of quantum mechanics.
Robert Coleman Richardson was an American experimental physicist whose area of research included sub-millikelvin temperature studies of helium-3. Richardson, along with David Lee, as senior researchers, and then graduate student Douglas Osheroff, shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics for their 1972 discovery of the property of superfluidity in helium-3 atoms in the Cornell University Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics.
Victor John Emery was a British specialist on superconductors and superfluidity. His model for the electronic structure of the copper-oxide planes is the starting point for many analyses of high-temperature superconductors and is commonly known as the Emery model.
Olli Viktor Lounasmaa was a Finnish academician, experimental physicist and neuroscientist. He was known for his research in low temperature physics, especially for experimental proof of the superfluidity of helium-3 and also for his work in the field of magnetoencephalography.
Second sound is a quantum mechanical phenomenon in which heat transfer occurs by wave-like motion, rather than by the more usual mechanism of diffusion. Its presence leads to a very high thermal conductivity. It is known as "second sound" because the wave motion of entropy and temperature is similar to the propagation of pressure waves in air (sound). The phenomenon of second sound was first described by Lev Landau in 1941.
Moses Hung-Wai Chan is a Chinese-American physicist who is Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University. He is an alumnus of Bridgewater College and Cornell University, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1974 and was a postdoctoral associate at Duke University. He has been a professor at Penn State's University Park Campus since 1979.
John David Reppy is a physicist and the John L. Wetherill Professor of Physics Emeritus at Cornell University. He studies the quantum properties of superfluids such as helium.
David Matthew Ceperley is a theoretical physicist in the physics department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign or UIUC. He is a world expert in the area of Quantum Monte Carlo computations, a method of calculation that is generally recognised to provide accurate quantitative results for many-body problems described by quantum mechanics.
Stefan Janos is a Slovak-Swiss university physicist and professor, founder of very low temperature physics in Slovakia.
Adrian Frederick George Wyatt, FRS is a British physicist, and Emeritus Professor at University of Exeter. He is a member of the Quantum Systems and Nanomaterials group. He won the 2004 Fernand Holweck Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics.
Eunseong Kim is a South Korean physicist. He is an experimental low temperature physicist. Along with his advisor Moses H. W. Chan, he saw the first phenomena which were interpreted as supersolid behavior. In 2008, Kim was awarded the Lee Osheroff Richardson North American Science Prize, from Oxford Instruments for his contributions to the understanding of solid helium.
Henry Edgar Hall FRS was a professor of low temperature physics at the University of Manchester. He was the 2004 recipient of the Guthrie Medal and Prize. Hall was awarded a Ph.D. in 1957 from Emmanuel College, Cambridge with thesis title The rotation of liquid helium II. He worked at the University of Manchester from 1958 to 1995, when he retired. He died on 4 December 2015.
Horst Meyer was a Swiss scientist doing research in condensed matter physics.
William P. Halperin is a Canadian-American physicist, academic, and researcher. He is the Orrington Lunt Professor of Physics at Northwestern University.
GrigoryEfimovich Volovik is a Russian theoretical physicist, who specializes in condensed matter physics. He is known for the Volovik effect.
