Superfluidity of Grain Boundaries in Solid He4

By large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations we show that grain boundaries in He4 crystals are generically superfluid at low temperature, with a transition temperature of the order of ∼0.5K at the melting pressure; nonsuperfluid grain boundaries are found only for special orientations of the grains. We also find that close vicinity to the melting line is not a necessary condition for superfluid grain boundaries, and a grain boundary in direct contact with the superfluid liquid at the melting curve is found to be mechanically stable and the grain-boundary superfluidity observed by Sasaki et al. [Science 313, 1098 (2006)SCIEAS0036-807510.1126/science.1130879] is not just a crack filled with superfluid.