MattiCavi Science news weekly: Liquid,solid,gas and what?????

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Liquid,solid,gas and what?????

In 1924 Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein found out a matter that is both liquid,solid and gas in-one.They suggested that helium cooled to sub-zero temperatures would act as a liquid,solid and gas and they called it"Bose- Einstein condensate". But sadly they did not make it because they did not have the technology,so Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman in 1995 at the University of Colorado lab,using a gas of rubidium atoms cooled to 170 nanokelvin made the weird gas. For their achievements Cornell, Wieman, and Wolfgang Ketterle received the 2001 nobel prize.

$T_c=\left(\frac{n}{\zeta(3/2)}\right)^{2/3}\frac{2\pi \hbar^2}{ m k_B} \approx 3.31 \ \frac{\hbar^2 n^{2/3}}{m k_B}$

where:

$\,T_c$	is	the critical temperature,
$\,n$	is	the particle density,
$\,m$	is	the mass per boson,
$\hbar$	is	the reduced Planck constant,
$\,k_B$	is	the Boltzmann constant, and
		the Riemann zeta function; $\,\zeta(3/2)\approx 2.6124.$ (sequence A078434 in OEIS) Velocity-distribution data of a gas of rubidiumatoms, confirming the discovery of a new phase of matter, the Bose–Einstein condensate. Left: just before the appearance of a Bose–Einstein condensate. Center: just after the appearance of the condensate. Right: after further evaporation, leaving a sample of nearly pure condensate. WIkipedia