A phase of matter that flows without viscosity, exhibiting effects such as frictionless flow and the ability to climb container walls. It arises in certain quantum systems at very low temperatures.
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- Superfluidity was first observed in liquid helium-4 cooled below about 2.17 kelvin, the lambda point, by Pyotr Kapitsa, John Allen, and Don Misener in 1937. Below this temperature a fraction of the liquid enters a state with zero viscosity.
- Superfluidity is a macroscopic quantum phenomenon related to Bose-Einstein condensation, in which a large number of particles occupy the same quantum state. It is studied alongside superconductivity, with which it shares the property of dissipationless flow.