The Normal and Superfluid States of Liquid ³He

Abstract

As you all know, the system which has been most extensively used for tests of theoretical ideas about the formation of topological defects in quenching is superfluid liquid ³He; it had also, earlier, been the subject of a controlled series of experiments on a closely related problem, namely the nucleation by high-energy radiation of a first-order phase transition. In these two lectures I shall give an introduction to the physics of superfluid ³He in which I shall consciously try to focus on those aspects which seem most relevant to the quenching problem. (For a more extended discussion of most of the topics I shall discuss, and much else, see ref.[1]).