Physicist Peter Engels Produces Bose Einstein Condensate
Physicist Peter Engels and his student Collin Atherton were the first in Northwest to produce a Bose Einstein Condensate.
Dozens of lenses, mirrors, lasers and vacuum chambers sprawl across two large tables, linked by electrical cables, optical fibers and water lines. Physicist Peter Engels flips switches and adjusts dials. The machine clicks through its procedure, and a minute later a computer screen flares with a pencil-shaped bright patch on a field of gray.
“It’s the coldest thing in the universe,” said Engels, nodding toward the bright image.
He has just produced Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), a rare and, as Engels calls it, “weird” form of matter in which atoms behave like waves rather than like particles. The ability to produce BEC is something of a holy grail in modern atomic physics; Engels’ Washington State University lab is the first in the Pacific Northwest to accomplish it.
Engels, an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, says being able to make BEC opens up a wide range of experimental possibilities in such areas as nuclear physics, astrophysics and quantum optics. Comprised of gaseous atoms that are cooled nearly to absolute zero (-459 degrees Fahrenheit), BEC has potential applications in ultrasensitive sensors of gravitational fields and in powerful new computing systems known as “quantum computers.”
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Physicist Peter Engels and his student Collin Atherton were the first in the Northwest to produce a Bose Einstein Condensate. This rare “and weird” form of matter is the coldest thing in the universe.
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