Mumbai, September 9
Scientists of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research have made history in creating the Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC) phenomenon in the country, which was predicted 82 years back by two great scientists Albert Einstein and Satyendra Nath Bose.
“The creation of this exotic state of matter was one step in our research program to understand the fundamental interactions in the physical world,” says the Principal scientist Prof C.S. Unnikrishnan of the ‘Fundamental Interactions Laboratory’ of TIFR.
The TIFR scientists used magnetic fields and lasers to cool atoms to an extremely low temperature just above minus 273.15 degrees Celsius, or absolute zero and created a Bose-Einstein Condensate.
The scientists cooled a gas of atoms of the element rubidium to such a low temperature that a cluster of tens of thousands of atoms behaves as a single “superatom”. And each atom overlaps every other atom to make a giant ‘matter wave’ which is the hallmark of the BEC, Unnikrishnan told PTI today.
The tiny cloud of atoms can ‘flow without resistance’.
The phenomenon had close connection to familiar superconductivity, and super fluidity in liquid helium, he said.
A BEC has only a short existence barely a few seconds. The ultra-cold atoms need to be confined in special “traps” created by either magnetic fields or lasers and maintained in ultra-high vacuum. Any contact with air will destroy a BEC.
Being the first and only BEC in India, there are several innovative aspects to it, making TIFR finding a special among the four or five labs in the world which have achieved BEC in optical traps.
More details of the experiment and pictures can be found at the laboratory website www.tifr.res.in/filab.
— PTI
