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Plasma and BEC
Plasma and BEC
about in school…
Until Now!
Plasma
Bose-Einstein
Condensate
We all know about:
SOLIDS LIQUIDS GASES
Lower Higher
Temperature Temperature
But what happens if you raise the
temperature to super-high levels…
between
1000°C and 1,000,000,000°C ?
Will everything
just be a gas?
NO!
If the gas is made up of particles which carry an
electric charge (“ionized particles”), but the
entire gas as a whole has no electric charge,
and if the density is not too high, then we
can get
PLASMA
Some places where plasmas are found…
1. Flames
2. Lightning
3. Aurora (Northern Lights)
4. Neon lights
5. Stars
6
So now we know all about
four states of matter:
PLASMAS
SOLIDS LIQUIDS GASES (only for low density
ionized gases)
Lower Higher
Temperature Temperature
But now what happens if you lower the
temperature way, way, down to
100 nano degrees above
“Absolute Zero” (-273°C)
Will everything
just be a frozen
solid?
Not Necessarily!
In 1924 (82 years ago), two scientists, Albert
Einstein and Satyendra Bose predicted a 5th
state of matter which would occur at very
very low temperatures.
Einstein Bose
+
Finally, in1995, Wolfgang
Ketterle and his team of
graduate students
discovered the 5th state of
matter for the first time.
Bose-Einstein Condensation
The big peak happens
when all the atoms
act exactly the same
way!
(We can’t see
Bose-Einstein
condensation
with our eyes
because the
atoms are too
small)
Some other computer images of Bose-Einstein Condensates…
To really understand
Bose-Einstein
condensate you need to
know
Quantum Physics
In 2002, Ketterle and two other scientists
received the highest award in science for
discovering Bose-Einstein condensate:
Lower Higher
Temperature Temperature