Abstract
Owing to the unusual dispersion curve for excitations in superfluid3He an object moving through the excitation gas experiences a very much higher drag force than expected for a similar ‘conventional’ gas. We have made investigations of the force on a body moving through a unidirectional beam of thermal excitations in3He-B at very low temperatures which shows that owing to the nature of Andreev reflection by the surrounding flow field the moving body (in this case a vibrating wire resonator) experiences a giant drag forceindependently of the relative direction of motion between object and beam.
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Shaw, N.S., Cousins, D.J., Enrico, M.P. et al. Quasiparticle molasses: the giant force on an object moving through a beam of thermal excitations in superfluid3He. Czech J Phys 46 (Suppl 1), 247–248 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02569539
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02569539