Ultrasound Propagation in the Normal State of Liquid $^{3}$He/ 98{\%} Aerogel.
ORAL
Abstract
We studied the propagation of longitudinal sound in the normal state of liquid $^{3}$He/ 98{\%} aerogel at 9.5 MHz. The absolute attenuation and sound velocity were determined by direct propagation of sound pulses through the medium. Our measurements cover a wide range of temperatures from 2 mK to 200 mK at three different pressures (10, 21 and 29 bars). As reported by Nomura \textit{et al}., the sound mode remains in the hydrodynamic limit down to 2 mK due to the impurity scattering off the aerogel. However, we observed a new feature in the high temperature range that the attenuation shows a minimum and increases at high temperature. The minimum (T$_{M})$ occurs around 60 mK at 10 bars and moves to 40 mK at 29 bars. For T $>>$ T$_{M}$, the attenuation at high temperature shows a T$^{0.7}$ dependence for all pressures. We will discuss our observations in the framework of theories proposed by Higashitani \textit{et al.} and Biot.
*Supported by an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (YL), NSF grants DMR-0239483 (YL) and DMR-0305371 (MWM).
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