Abstract

Phys. Rev. B (2002) 65 (18) art. no. 184521

Influence of Backflow on Roton Quantum Evaporation

M.B. Sobnack¹, J.R. Matthias², J.C.H. Fung³, C.D.H. Williams² and J.C. Inkson²

¹Department of Physics, University of Loughborough, Loughborough, (UK).

²School of Physics, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4QL (UK).

³Hong Kong Univ. Sci. & Technol., Department of Mathemtics, Kowloon, Hong Kong.

We study the effect of roton backflow on the scattering of quasiparticles and atoms at the free surface of superfluid He-4 at T=0K. As a starting point, we use Beliaev's formalism and include backflow semiphenomenologically in the form of a backflow potential. We derive equations of motion for the bulk quasiparticles and the free atoms. Assuming that all the quasiparticles travel ballistically, we solve the equations of motion numerically for oblique incidence and calculate probabilities for all the one-to-one surface scattering processes allowed by the conservation laws. We compare the results with those obtained when backflow is neglected. Use of some of the calculated rates in the simulations of experiments shows that the calculated scattering rates with backflow included are in improved agreement with experiments.

Keywords: liquid helium, quantum evaporation.
Preprint: doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.65.184521