Manifestations of Local Supersolidity of 4He around a Charged Molecular Impurity
Abstract
A frozen, solid helium core, dubbed snowball, is typically observed around cations in liquid helium. Here we discover, using path integral simulations, that around a cationic molecular impurity, protonated methane, the 4He atoms are indeed strongly localized akin to snowballs but still participate in vivid bosonic exchange induced by the ro-vibrational motion of the impurity. Such combination of solid-like order with pronounced superfluid response in the first helium shell indicates that manifestations of local supersolid behavior of 4He can be induced -- and probed experimentally -- by charged molecules.
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