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PUBLICATIONS

The Bose-Einstein condensate

Published

Author(s)

Eric A. Cornell, C E. Wieman

Abstract

In June 1995, our research group at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics in Bolder, Colorado, succeeded in creating a miniscule but marvelous droplet. By cooling 2,000 rubidium atoms to a temperature less than 100 billionths of a degree above absolute zero, we caused the atoms to lose for a full 10 seconds their individual identities and behave as though they were a single superatom. The atoms' physical properties, such as their motions, became identical to one another. This Bose-Einstein condensate, the first observed in a gas, can be throught of as the matter counterpart of the laser-except that in the condensate it is atoms, rather than photons, that dance in perfect unison.
Citation
Scientific American
Volume
278
Pub Type
Journals

Keywords

Bose-Einstein condensation, laser cooling, magnetic trapping, popular accounts

Citation

Cornell, E. and Wieman, C. (1998), The Bose-Einstein condensate, Scientific American (Accessed October 9, 2025)

Issues

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Created January 1, 1998, Updated February 17, 2017
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