Universal temperature dependence, flux extinction, and the role of 3He impurities in superfluid mass transport through solid 4He.

The mass flux, F, carried by as-grown solid (4)He in the range 25.6-26.3 bar rises with falling temperature, and at a concentration-dependent temperature, T(d), the flux decreases sharply within a few mK. We study F as a function of (3)He impurity concentration, χ. We find that T(d) is an increasing function of increasing χ. At temperatures above T(d) the flux has a universal temperature dependence and the flux terminates in a narrow window near a characteristic temperature T(h) ≈ 625 mK, which is independent of χ.