Bose–Einstein Condensation in a Dilute Gas: The First 70 Years and some Recent Experiments (Nobel Lecture)

Abstract

Bose–Einstein condensates of dilute gases offer a rich field to study fundamental quantum‐mechanical processes, manipulation of the speed at which light propagates, observation of atomic pair‐formation and superfluidity, or even simulating white dwarf stars. Still more radical applications are on the horizon. However, their initial creation was a masterpiece of experimental physics. After an initial process of laser cooling (which itself won its developers the 1997 Nobel Prize), atoms in a magnetic–optical trap must be safely transfered into a purely magnetic trap, where the condensation process begins at 170 nK and by 20 nK a pure condensate of 2000 atoms could be created. More astonishingly, Wieman and Cornell showed these low temperatures could be achieved in “bench scale” equipment rather than the massive pieces normally demanded by cryoscience. For their 1995 discovery of this new state of matter, they were awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Four-Component Relativistic Coupled Cluster and Configuration Interaction Calculations on the Ground and Excited States of the RbYb Molecule

“…A number of groundbreaking achievements has been reported from the field of cold and ultracold molecules, and ongoing investigations bear the potential for yet further findings of fundamental importance. 1 These range from the production of Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) 2 to the striving for a controlled chemistry at the quantum level 3 and the possibility of testing, e.g., fundamental symmetries in nature through measurements of a postulated electric dipole moment (EDM) of an electron 4,5 or the space-time variation of fundamental constants such as the fine-structure constant R. 6,7 The experimental work for producing (ultra)cold molecules has to the date been conducted in a variety of ways, such as photoassociation (PA), 8 buffer gas cooling (sympathetic cooling), 9 Stark deceleration of polar molecules via time-modulated electric fields, 10 and magnetically tunable Feshbach resonances. 11 Theoretical contributions to the field of (ultra)cold molecules are of value in many different respects.…”

“…Rb 5p 1( 2 P 3/2,1/2 ) + Yb 6s2( 1 S 0 ) 2 Π 3/2,1/2 , 2 Σ1/2 + Rb 5s 1( 2 S 1/2 ) + Yb 6s 1 6p 1( 3 P 2,1,0 ) 4 Π 5/2,3/2,1/2,-1/2 , 2 Π 3/2,1/2 , 4 Σ3/2,1/2 +, 2 Σ1/2 + Rb 4d 1( 2 D 5/2,3/2 ) + Yb 6s 2( 1 S 0 )2 ∆ 5/2,3/2 , 2 Π 3/2,1/2 , 2 Σ1/2 + Molecular electronic states correlating to atomic channels with intra-atomic Yb f-d excitations, e.g., Yb 4f 13 5d 1 6s 2 are not considered.…”

Physics with coherent matter waves

“…The physics of BEC has already been summarized in several review articles, e.g. [16,[28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40] and textbooks, e.g. [41][42][43][44][45].…”

Evidence of high-temperature exciton condensation in two-dimensional atomic double layers

“…A Bose-Einstein condensate is the ground state of a dilute gas of bosons, such as atoms cooled to temperatures close to absolute zero 1 . With much smaller mass, excitons (bound electron-hole pairs) are expected to condense at significantly higher temperatures [2][3][4][5][6][7] .…”