The Roton reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004
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Roton

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A roton is an excitation in superfluid Helium-4. A graph of the energy vs. the momentum of such an excitation increases linearly from the origin, but exhibits first a maximum and then a minimum in energy as the momentum increases. Excitations with momenta in the linear region are called phonons; those with momenta close to the minimum are called rotons. Excitations with momenta near the maximum are sometimes called maxons.


Roton also refers to the Roton SSTO spacecraft design.