Cornell, E.
and Wieman, C.
(1998),
The Bose-Einstein condensate, Scientific American
(Accessed April 23, 2024)
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The Bose-Einstein condensate
Published
Author(s)
, 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
Created January 1, 1998, Updated February 17, 2017