Universality of the Phonon–Roton Spectrum in Liquids and Superfluidity of 4He

Abstract

Abstract Based on numerous experimental data on inelastic neutron and X-ray scattering in liquids, we assert that the phonon–roton spectrum of collective excitations, predicted by Landau for superfluid helium, is a universal property of the liquid state. We show that the existence of the roton minimum in the spectrum of collective excitations is caused by the short-range order in liquids. Using the virial theorem, we assume that one more branch of excitations should exist in He II, whose energy spectrum differs from the phonon–roton spectrum. Such excitations are associated with the pole of single-particle Green function, which can have a gap at small values of momenta.