We study the zero-temperature quantum phase transition between liquid and hcp solid helium-4. We use the variational method with a simple yet exchange-symmetric and fully explicit wavefunction. It is found that the optimized wavefunction undergoes sp
ontaneous symmetry breaking and describes the quantum solidification of helium at 22 atm. The explicit form of the wavefunction allows to consider various contributions to the phase transition. We find that the employed wavefunction is an excellent candidate for describing both a first-order quantum phase transition and the ground state of a Bose solid.
The changes that vacancies produce in the properties of hcp solid 4He are studied by means of quantum Monte Carlo methods. Our results show that the introduction of vacancies produces significant changes in the behavior of solid 4He, even when the va
cancy concentration is very small. We show that there is an onset temperature where the properties of incommensurate 4He change significantly. Below this temperature, we observe the emergence of off-diagonal long range order and a complete spatial delocalization of the vacancies. This temperature is quite close to the temperature where non-classical rotational inertia has been experimentally observed. Finally, we report results on the influence of vacancies in the elastic properties of hcp 4He at zero temperature.
We study the elasticity of perfect 4He at zero-temperature using the diffusion Monte Carlo method and a realistic semi-empirical pairwise potential to describe the He-He interactions. Specifically, we calculate the value of the elastic constants of h
cp helium C_{ij} as a function of pressure up to 110 bar. It is found that the pressure dependence of all five non-zero C_{ij} is linear and we provide accurate parametrization of each of them. Our elastic constants results are compared to previous variational calculations and low-temperature measurements and in general notably good agreement is found among them. Furthermore, we report T = 0 results for the Gruneisen parameters, sound velocities and Debye temperature of hcp 4He. This work represents the first of a series of computational studies aimed at thoroughly characterizing the response of solid helium to external stress-strain.
Equation of state of He-4 hcp crystals with vacancies is determined at zero temperature using the diffusion Monte Carlo technique, an exact ground state zero-temperature method. This allows us to extract the formation enthalpy and isobaric formation
energy of a single vacancy in otherwise perfect helium solid. Results were obtained for pressures up to 160 bar. The isobaric formation energy is found to reach a minimum near 57 bar where it is equal to $10.5pm 1.2$ K. At the same pressure, the vacancy formation volume exhibits a maximum and reaches the volume of the unit cell. This pressure coincides with the pressure interval over which a peak in the supersolid fraction of He-4 was observed in a recent experiment.
