Specific Heat Near the Superfluid Transition of a 0.9869 μm ⁴He Film

We report measurements of the specific heat of ⁴He near the superfluid transition while confined between silicon wafers at 0.9869 μm separation. These data are analyzed to check on the behavior expected from correlation-length scaling. Comparison is also made with other data for planar confinement, as well as data for cylindrical confinement. These represent different lower-dimensional crossovers. We find that the present data scale very well above the bulk transition temperature, and in the region immediately below it. Near the specific heat maximum however, the data for planar confinement do not collapse on a universal curve. We compare these results with specific theoretical scaling functions. In particular we find that on the normal side, and for large enough values of the scaling variable, one can describe the data well using the concept of the surface specific heat. The locus of the data in this region agrees well with the most recent theoretical calculations.