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Fluctuation-induced supersolidity at the superfluid-solid interface

Baptiste Coquinot*, Ragheed Alhyder, Alberto Cappellaro, and Mikhail Lemeshko†

  • *Contact author: Baptiste.Coquinot@ist.ac.at
  • †Contact author: Mikhail.Lemeshko@ista.ac.at
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Phys. Rev. B 114, L260503 – Published 9 November, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/xfj1-gndb

Abstract

Supersolidity, combining superfluid and crystalline orders, has been realized in dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates by tuning interatomic interactions. Here, we show that supersolidity can also emerge from mode coupling at a superfluid-solid interface, without modifying bulk interactions and for a broad class of superfluids. Using an analytical and numerical treatment of the coupled superfluid and phonon fields, we derive the criterion for a density-modulation instability driven by interfacial coupling and dependent on dimensionality. In superfluid helium, the instability first appears at the roton mode, while in a Bose-Einstein condensate with contact interactions it can occur for a large range of wave vectors. Beyond the threshold, the ground state acquires an interfacial density modulation while the bulk remains superfluid, forming a hybrid superfluid-supersolid phase. Our results identify interfacial mode coupling as a promising route to supersolidity, enabling the simultaneous exploitation of interfacial supersolid and bulk superfluid quantum properties, as well as using the interface as a seed to nucleate bulk supersolidity.

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Phys. Rev. B 114, L260503– Published 9 November, 2026
  • Received 9 December 2025
  • Revised 2 September 2026
  • Accepted 1 October 2026
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