On the Destabilization of Metastable Solid 4He

Recently, a metastable state of solid He has been produced by locally lowering the density of the solid below the melting density using a focused acoustic wave pulse. An unexpected instability of the solid has been found about 4 bar below the melting line. This paper reports on experiments precisely localizing in time the instability birth within the acoustic pulse. It is found that, as expected, the instability always appears during a depression swing of the wave. However a metastability pressure limit does not emerge clearly. Total stress duration seems also to play a role in the instability triggering, suggesting a fatigue effect.