{"id":488039,"date":"2026-02-20T16:55:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T16:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/488039\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T16:55:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T16:55:16","slug":"a-superfluid-was-supposed-to-flow-forever-but-physicists-found-it-suddenly-stopped-and-that-should-be-impossible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/488039\/","title":{"rendered":"A Superfluid Was Supposed to Flow Forever, But Physicists Found It Suddenly Stopped and That Should Be Impossible"},"content":{"rendered":"

A superfluid is supposed to flow forever without friction. Yet researchers have now observed one come to a stop. In classical physics, matter falls neatly into familiar categories: gases, liquids, solids, and plasmas. But as temperatures approach absolute zero, quantum mechanics begins to reshape those categories in ways that defy everyday intuition.<\/p>\n

That is how, in January 1938<\/a>, two independent teams discovered that helium cooled to around 2 Kelvin enters a superfluid state, flowing without viscosity and without losing energy. That discovery raised an enduring question: if liquids have a quantum equivalent, could solids have one too?<\/p>\n

The Decades-Long Hunt for a Supersolid<\/p>\n

A supersolid is a strange hybrid. It would retain the organized crystalline lattice of a solid while simultaneously allowing frictionless flow, a defining feature of superfluids. The concept has fascinated physicists <\/a>for decades.<\/p>\n

\"IllustrationIllustration of excitons arranging into a solid pattern in bilayer graphene \u2013 \u00a9 Dean Lab, Columbia University<\/p>\n

Scientists have never observed a naturally occurring element spontaneously turning into a supersolid. Previous experiments have relied on lasers and optical techniques to coax materials into such states. According to Popular Mechanics<\/a>, no experiment had yet captured a spontaneous formation resembling this transition. The new study<\/a>, led by researchers at Columbia University and the University of Texas at Austin, suggests that may be changing.<\/p>\n

Graphene and Excitons at the Center of the Experiment<\/p>\n

Instead of working with helium, the team turned to graphene, a single-atom-thick layer of carbon arranged in two dimensions. In a carefully arranged setup, two graphene sheets were configured so that one carried excess electrons and the other excess holes. Under these conditions, the system can host quasiparticles known as excitons.<\/p>\n

When a strong magnetic field was applied, the excitons formed a superfluid. According to the study, the researchers observed that at high density the excitons behaved like a superfluid<\/a>. As density decreased, the excitons stopped moving and the material became insulating. When temperature increased again, the excitons returned to superfluid behavior.<\/p>\n

\"\u00a0Tuning inter-exciton spacing\u00a0\u2113e\u00a0with layer imbalance \u2013 \u00a9 Nature<\/p>\n

Jia Li, a co-author from UT Austin, stated in a press release<\/a> that \u201cSuperfluidity is generally regarded as the low-temperature ground state.\u201d He added that observing \u201can insulating phase that melts into a superfluid is unprecedented,\u201d suggesting that the low-temperature phase may be \u201ca highly unusual exciton solid.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Supersolid or an Unusual Excitonic State?<\/p>\n

The interpretation remains open. Cory Dean of Columbia University acknowledged the limits of current measurements, explaining in a press statement that \u201cWe are left to speculate some, as our ability to interrogate insulators stops a little.\u201d According to Dean, the team is exploring the boundaries of this insulating state while developing tools to measure it directly.<\/p>\n

While a supersolid is a leading explanation, the system could also be described as an excitonic superfluid arranged in a different configuration. The distinction has not yet been definitively resolved.<\/p>\n

One aspect is clear from the study : excitons are thousands of times lighter than helium atoms. That difference means they could form superfluids and supersolids at higher temperatures than helium-based systems. For physicists studying superconductivity and quantum materials, that possibility alone makes the result hard to ignore.<\/p>\n

A superfluid that stops flowing may sound like a contradiction. In this case, it may instead signal that quantum matter still has surprises in store.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A superfluid is supposed to flow forever without friction. Yet researchers have now observed one come to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[49,48,314,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-488039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-physics","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}