Observation of suppressed viscosity in the normal state of 3 He due to superfluid fluctuations.

Evidence of fluctuations in transport have long been predicted in 3 He. They are expected to contribute only within 100μK of T c and play a vital role in the theoretical modeling of ordering; they encode details about the Fermi liquid parameters, pairing symmetry, and scattering phase shifts. It is expected that they will be of crucial importance for transport probes of the topologically nontrivial features of superfluid 3 He under strong confinement. Here we characterize the temperature and pressure dependence of the fluctuation signature, by monitoring the quality factor of a quartz tuning fork oscillator. We have observed a fluctuation-driven reduction in the viscosity of bulk 3 He, finding data collapse consistent with the predicted theoretical behavior.