Cavitation of Electron Bubbles in Liquid Helium Below Saturation Pressure

Abstract

PACS 47.55.Bx, 64.60.Qb, 71.15.Mb

Cavitation of electron bubbles in liquid parahydrogen

“…We recall that ρ b is the bulk pH 2 density at such temperature. This type of interaction was already used for liquid 4 He [10], and the results obtained were found to be very similar to those obtained using the Hartree-type interaction term [11]. We have checked that the results obtained using both type of interactions are indeed very similar also in the case of pH 2 .…”

“…It can be seen that it leads to the unphysical result that P expl < P sp for T ≥ 28 K. Analogously to the helium case, this failure is related to the presence of a sizeable gas-like region within the electron bubble [11], which cannot be described within the simple capillary approximation. Any improvement in the method used to address cavitation induced by electrons calls for a more realistic description of the bubble-liquid interface, together with using an electron-pH 2 interaction that reproduces the energy barrier encountered by an electron entering liquid pH 2 , much along what has been done for liquid helium [10,11]. This is the aim of the next Section.…”

“…The capillary approximation is found to work fairly well for electron bubbles in liquid helium, especially at low temperatures [11] where the interface separating the electron bubble cavity from the liquid is rather sharp due to the pressure exerted by the electron against the surrounding fluid.…”

“…At given temperature (T ), there is a limiting (critical) pressure below which electron bubbles explode triggering liquid-gas phase separation. In the case of helium, this process is well known and the agreement between theory and experiment is very satisfactory [11,12].…”

Electron mobility in liquid and supercritical helium measured using corona discharges: a new semi-empirical model for cavity formation

“…5 Cavity formation around electrons in LHe has been studied extensively using various methods 12,13 including density function theory (DFT). [14][15][16][17] DFT methods specially developed for LHe provide good agreement with first principles methods for small helium clusters, 18 but have the disadvantage that they are restricted to zero Kelvin. Despite all these efforts, the precise prediction of the transition from gas-kinetic to hydrodynamic flow still remains a challenge for theory.…”