Douglas Osheroff

Douglas Osheroff is an American physicist who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering superfluidity in helium-3.

David Lee: David Lee is an American physicist who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize for discovering superfluidity in helium-3. Lee supervised the Cornell research group where Osheroff made the discovery.
Helium-3: Helium-3 is a stable, rare isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron. Osheroff’s discovery concerned this isotope’s behavior at temperatures near absolute zero.
Cornell University: Cornell University is a private research university in Ithaca, New York. Osheroff, Lee, and Richardson conducted the discovery experiments in Cornell laboratories.
A phase: The A phase is one of the two principal superfluid phases of liquid helium-3, characterized by anisotropic pairing. It is one of the states identified in the transitions Osheroff’s group observed.
Robert C. Richardson: Robert C. Richardson was an American physicist who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize for discovering superfluidity in helium-3. Richardson co-led the Cornell laboratory with Lee during the discovery.
Superfluidity: Superfluidity is a state of matter that flows without viscosity and exhibits other quantum effects on macroscopic scales. The phenomenon Osheroff helped discover is a distinctive form of superfluidity.
Pomeranchuk cooling: Pomeranchuk cooling is a method of cooling liquid helium-3 by exploiting its changing entropy during compression or melting. The cooling technique brought the sample into the temperature range where unexpected transitions appeared.
B phase: The B phase is a superfluid phase of liquid helium-3 with an isotropic energy gap and paired atoms in a distinct spin state. It is the other principal low-temperature phase revealed by the discovery.
John Bardeen: John Bardeen was an American physicist who won two Nobel Prizes in Physics, for superconductivity theory and the transistor. Bardeen’s theory helped explain the paired-particle mechanism behind helium-3 superfluidity.
Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer theory: Bardeen–Cooper–Schrieffer theory explains superconductivity through the formation of paired electrons. A related pairing principle explains how helium-3 atoms form a superfluid state.

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Robert Coleman RichardsonRelated: Osheroff, then a graduate student, detected the transitions that launched the discovery.