On the feasibility of detecting an Aharonov-Bohm phase shift in neutral matter

It has been predicted that, in the presence of combined radial electric field and axial magnetic field, superfluid He-4 in a torus will have a persistent current in its ground state. This surprising result arises from non-cancellation of the Aharonov-Bohm phase shifts associated with the opposite charges in the induced electric dipole moment of the neutral He-4 atoms. We briefly review this prediction and describe our proposed experiment. In this feasibility study we show that by applying laboratory accessible electric and magnetic fields, a superfluid He-4 interferometer (SHeQUID) will have sufficient sensitivity to conclusively determine whether or not the predicted physical phenomenon exists.