⁴He Films near Monolayer Completion

Abstract

We study the role played by the substrate–helium interaction in determining whether a ⁴He film is fluid or solid near monolayer completion. In order to glean information concerning the possible fluid-solid transition we calculate the equation of state as well as the behavior of phonons and rotons for a high density monolayer fluid film. By analyzing the behavior of the long-wavelength excitations and the roton gap, we argue that we can infer instability in the fluid phase. We study a model Lennard-Jones two parameter potential for the substrate–helium interaction. We map out in the two-parameter space the separatrix between those weak substrates that can only support a fluid monolayer from those strong substrates that support a solid. Our approach utilizes a combination of information from both variational calculations and also correlated basis function theory to examine in detail the excitation structure in the monolayer liquid as a function of film coverage and substrate potential.