Atoms perform a quantum flip
Unlike billiard balls, atoms can suddenly reverse their momentum
Argon makes a cold compound
Argon is the lightest yet of the inert gases to have formed a compound. It is difficult to persuade light inert gases to react because their outer electrons are shielded less from the electrostatic pu...
Quantum entanglement spreads to Bose condensates
In a Bose-Einstein condensate a gas of atoms is cooled until the de Broglie wavelength of the atoms exceeds the inter-atom spacing. If the atoms are bosons – that is, if they have a “spin&...
Double first for superfluids
Helium-3 flows without friction when it is cooled below the superfluid transition temperature of 2.6 millikelvin. In the superfluid state the helium-3 atoms, which are fermions and therefore obey the ...
Solitons formed in Bose–Einstein condensate
Bose–Einstein condensates are trapped atoms that are cooled to low temperatures and occupy the same quantum state. They are ideal for studying and manipulating quantum effects such as solitons a...
Astronomy and physics dominate Science top ten
Confirmation that the universe is flat – expanding at just the right rate not to collapse – came from measurements of ripples in the cosmic background radiation left over from the big bang...
Condensates in a whirl
Physicists have been attempting to create a vortex in a dilute Bose condensate since these systems were first created in 1995. In principle, atomic condensates are ideal systems in which to study vort...
Fermions go degenerate
Brian DeMarco and Deborah Jin used a pair of magneto-optical traps to confine about 700000 atoms of potassium-40 at temperatures below 300 nanokelvin. This is about half of the degeneracy temperature ...
Dropping atoms gives precise value of g
Atomic interferometers use lasers to place atoms into superpositions of different quantum states. These states acquire different phases as they move in a gravitational field, and this phase difference...
Read article: Matter makes waves
Matter makes waves
Phillips and his colleagues produced a focused directional output from the Bose-Einstein condensate by firing two laser beams into the condensate. One beam adds energy to the atoms, while the second s...
