Experimental Studies of Bose–Einstein Condensation

DEC 01, 1999

Since first being produced four years ago, Bose–Einstein condensates of dilute gases have provided a rich playground for exploring atomic, quantum, and many‐body physics.

DOI: 10.1063/1.882898

Wolfgang Ketterle

The possibility of creating optical fields with many photons in a single mode of a resonator was realized with the creation of the laser in 1960. The possibility of creating a matter‐wave field with many atoms in a single mode of an atom trap—the atomic equivalent of an optical resonator—was realized with the achievement of Bose–Einstein condensation (BEC) in 1995.

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References

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A related experiment was reported by D. S. Jin et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 764 (1997).https://doi.org/PRLTAO

More about the authors

Wolfgang Ketterle, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts.