Microscopic dynamics and Bose-Einstein condensation in liquid helium

We review fundamental problems involved in liquid theory including both classical and quantum liquids. Understanding classical liquids involves exploring details of their microscopic dynamics and its consequences. Here, we apply the same general idea to quantum liquids. We discuss momentum condensation in liquid helium which is consistent with microscopic dynamics in liquids and high mobility of liquid atoms. We propose that mobile transit atoms accumulate in the finite-energy state where the transit speed is close to the speed of sound. In this state, the transit energy is close to the zero-point energy. In momentum space, the accumulation operates on a sphere with the radius set by interatomic spacing and corresponds to zero net momentum. We show that this picture is supported by experiments, including the kinetic energy of helium atoms below the superfluid transition and sharp peaks of scattered intensity at predicted energy. We discuss the implications of this picture including the macroscopic wave function and superfluidity. The superfluid transition temperature is evaluated to be within 15% of the experimental value.

K. Trachenko · 2022