We report a quantitative experimental study of the crystallization kinetics of supercooled quantum liquid mixtures of para-hydrogen (pH$_2$) and ortho-deuterium (oD$_2$) by high spatial resolution Raman spectroscopy of liquid microjets. We show that
in a wide range of compositions the crystallization rate of the isotopic mixtures is significantly reduced with respect to that of the pure substances. To clarify this behavior we have performed path-integral simulations of the non-equilibrium pH$_2$-oD$_2$ liquid mixtures, revealing that differences in quantum delocalization between the two isotopic species translate into different effective particle sizes. Our results provide first experimental evidence for crystallization slowdown of quantum origin, offering a benchmark for theoretical studies of quantum behavior in supercooled liquids.
We investigate the dynamic structure factor of a system of Bose particles at zero temperature using quantum Monte Carlo methods. Interactions are modeled using a hard-sphere potential of size $a$ and simulations are performed for values of the gas pa
rameter $na^3$ ranging from the dilute regime up to densities $n$ where the thermodynamically stable phase is a solid. With increasing density we observe a crossover of the dispersion of elementary excitations from a Bogoliubov-like spectrum to a phonon--maxon--roton curve and the emergence of a broad multiphonon contribution accompanying the single-quasiparticle peak. In particular, for $na^3=0.2138$, which corresponds to superfluid $^4$He at equilibrium density, the extracted spectrum turns out to be in good agreement with the experimental energy--momentum dispersion relation in the roton region and for higher momenta. The behavior of the spectral function at the same density in the stable solid and metastable gas phase above the freezing point is also discussed.
