NMR Studies of ³He Impurities in ⁴He in the Proposed Supersolid Phase

Abstract

Preliminary results are reported for measurements of the NMR relaxation times of very dilute ³He in samples of solid ⁴He at low temperature, 0.25 K <T< 1.3 K. The results were obtained for carefully prepared samples with different ³He concentrations. The measurements of the spin-spin relaxation time, T ₂, show several interesting features. A temperature independent plateau attributed to the exchange motional narrowing is observed down to the lowest temperature studied, and the observed variation of T ₂ with ³He concentration favors the nonlinear theory suggested by Landesman. The best fit to the data is given by T ₂ ∝ x ^−1.89±0.1₃ rather than x ⁻¹₃ . No evidence of an exchange-phonon bottleneck for the spin-lattice relaxation is seen down to 25 mK. The vacancy activation energy is determined to be 13.5±0.3 K for a sample with x ₃=5×10⁻⁴ and molar volume 20.9 cm³.