Charged snowball in nonpolar liquid

The problem of correct definition of the charge carrier effective mass in superfluid helium is revised. It is demonstrated that the effective mass M of such a quasiparticle can be introduced without use of Atkins' idea concerning the solidification of liquid He in the close vicinity of an ion. The two-liquid scenario of the 'snowball' mass formation is investigated. The normal fluid contribution to the total snowball effective mass, the physical causes of its singularity, and a way to do the corresponding regularization procedure are discussed. Within the two-liquid model, two different effective snowball radii exist: R-id for superfluid flow component and R-n for the normal one, R-n > R-id s demonstrated. Agreement of the theory with the available experimental data is found. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.