Dissipation peak as an indicator of inhomogeneity in solid 4He oscillator experiments

A simple phenomenological model is developed for the recent torsional oscillator experiments on solid He-4. Within this model, for a homogeneous sample, there is a specific quantitative relation between the change in the oscillator's frequency and its maximum damping at the apparent supersolid transition. Much of the published data do not satisfy this relation, suggesting that the dissipation peaks in those samples are strongly inhomogeneously broadened.