An experiment to measure the thermal conductivity of polarized liquid He-3

The thermal conductivity of liquid He-3 is expected to be sensitive to its nuclear polarization, as the Pauli principle restricts the phase space avai lable for collisions. We demonstrate that a vibrating wire viscometer can b e used both as a heater (through viscous heating) and a thermometer to meas ure this thermal conductivity. We report a preliminary experiment on the po larized liquid, which shows an increase of the conductivity upon polarizati on. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.