It is shown that there should exist in saturated films of superfluid 4He at low temperature a nonlinear surface wave described by the Korteweg-de Vries equation. The effect of surface tension makes the solitary wave cold, in contrast to very thin films discussed in a preceding paper. An electrostatic method is proposed to generate cold solitary waves. The asymptotic behavior can be found theoretically by the inverse scattering method. Estimates of parameters imply the possibility of observing each solitary wave separately.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
S. Nakajima, S. Kurihara, and K. Tohdoh, J. Low Temp. Phys. 39, 465 (1980).
D. J. Korteweg and G. de Vries, Phil. Mag. 39, 422 (1895).
B. A. Huberman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 41, 1389 (1978).
K. R. Atkins and I. Rudnick, Prog. Low Temp. Phys. 6, 37 (1970).
C. S. Gardner, J. M. Grune, M. D. Kruskal, and R. M. Miura, Phys. Rev. Lett. 19, 1095 (1967).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Nakajima, S., Tohdoh, K. & Kurihara, S. Solitary waves in saturated films of superfluid 4He. J Low Temp Phys 41, 521–528 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00114361
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00114361