Optically Trapped Fermi Gases

A few hundred thousand atoms, chilled to near absolute zero, mimic the physics of other extreme systems, including neutron stars and superconductors

Physics

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May-June 2004

Volume 92, Number 3
Page 231

DOI: 10.1511/2004.47.231

The bowl is only a millimeter long and a tenth of a millimeter wide, no bigger than a piece of lint. Its walls are constructed of pure light, making this "optical bowl" an appropriately ethereal container for the stuff sloshing around inside: lithium atoms that have been chilled to less than a millionth of a degree above absolute zero.

Image courtesy of the European Southern Observatory.

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