HOMOGENEOUS NUCLEATION OF CRYSTALLINE ORDER IN SUPERDENSE LIQUID-HE-4

We present the results of a numerical crystallization experiment in He -4 performed with the shadow wave function and the variational Monte C arlo method. The experiment consists in Monte Carlo simulations starti ng from Liquidlike configurations of the atoms at a density well above the melting point. The system presents spontaneous nucleation of crys talline seeds, proving the spontaneous symmetry-breaking property of t he shadow wave function. The final configurations display a face-cente red-cubic structure grown preferentially by {111} planes, accompanied by stacking disorder.