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Author: Bob Ilka, Phys.org
A group of researchers affiliated with several institutions in Germany and two institutions in France set a new record for the lowest temperature in the history of the laboratory environment-a high temperature of 38 skins. In their paper published in the journal Physics, the team described their work using a time-domain matter wave lens system. Vincenzo Tamma of the University of Portsmouth published an opinion article in the same journal discussing the team's work in Germany.
Previous research has shown that the lowest temperature possible is absolutely zero-0 Kelvin. Previous studies have also shown that as materials get cold, the properties of some materials begin to change. For example, the liquid form of helium becomes a superfluid at extremely low temperatures. This change in the nature of matter has been the subject of many studies, as have efforts aimed at creating a colder testing environment. In this new effort, the researchers created the coldest environment ever created by using lenses made of quantum gas.
This work uses a quantum gas lens and the famous Bremen Falling Tower in Bremen, Germany, which has a 122-meter high drop tube. They first created a gas cloud at the top of a tower made of rubidium atoms. The cloud is held in place by a magnetic trap, which also acts as a material wave lens, focusing the atoms in the cloud into a Bose-Einstein condensation, making the cloud cool. The researchers then closed the trap, allowing the cloud to expand in all directions (and make it colder) as the cloud fell down the length of the tower. Detectors on both sides of the tower measure the kinetic energy of the atoms in the cloud as they pass by. This process only lasted two seconds, but it was enough to show that it created a record-breaking cold environment. The researchers pointed out that small changes in the settings, such as reducing the number of atoms in the cloud, may result in lower temperatures. Tamma pointed out that the setup the team created in Bremen may be used to test the theory of gravity at the quantum level. Further explore techniques to characterize the transformation of superfluids into supersolids and return more information: Christian Deppner et al., Collective Mode Enhanced Matter Wave Optics, Physical Review Letters (2021). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.100401
Vincenzo Tamma, 3D collimation of matter waves, Physics (2021). DOI: 10.1103/Physics.14.119 Journal information: Physics Review Letters
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