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Lab Research Yields the Biggest Chill



 
 
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Old September 12th 03, 01:28 AM
Ron Baalke
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Default Lab Research Yields the Biggest Chill


MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Jane Platt (818) 354-0880
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Dolores Beasley (202) 358-1753
NASA Headquarters, Washington

Elizabeth A. Thomson (617) 258-5402
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.

News Release: 2003-122
September 11, 2003

Lab Research Yields the Biggest Chill

NASA-funded researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
in Cambridge have cooled sodium gas to the lowest temperature ever
recorded -- one-half-billionth degree above absolute zero. Absolute
zero is the point where no further cooling is possible.

This new temperature is six times lower than the previous record, and
marks the first time that a gas was cooled below 1 nanokelvin (1
billionth of a degree). At absolute zero (-273º Celsius or -460º
Fahrenheit), all motion stops, except for tiny atomic vibrations,
since the cooling process has extracted all energy from the particles.
By improving cooling methods, scientists have succeeded in getting
closer to absolute zero.

"To go below 1 nanokelvin is like running a mile below four minutes
for the first time," said Dr. Wolfgang Ketterle, a physics professor
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-leader of the
research team.

"Ultra-low temperature gases could lead to vast improvements in
precision measurements by allowing better atomic clocks and sensors
for gravity and rotation," said Dr. David E. Pritchard, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology physics professor, pioneer in atom optics and
atom interferometry, and co-leader of the team.

In 1995, a group at the University of Colorado, Boulder and a
Massachusetts Institute of Technology group led by Ketterle cooled
atomic gases to below 1 microkelvin (one-millionth degree above
absolute zero). In doing so, they discovered a new form of matter, the
Bose-Einstein condensate, where the particles march in lockstep
instead of flitting around independently. The discovery was recognized
with the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics, which Ketterle shared with his
Boulder colleagues, Drs. Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman.
Since the 1995 breakthrough, many groups have routinely reached
nanokelvin temperatures, with 3 nanokelvin as the lowest temperature
previously recorded. The new record set by the Massachusetts group is
500 picokelvin, or six times lower.

At such low temperatures, atoms cannot be kept in physical containers,
because they would stick to the walls. Also, no known container can be
cooled to such temperatures. To circumvent this problem, magnets
surround the atoms, which keep the gaseous cloud confined without
touching it. To reach the record-low temperatures, the researchers
invented a novel way of confining atoms, which they call a
"gravito-magnetic trap." The magnetic fields acted together with
gravitational forces to keep the atoms trapped.

All the researchers are affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology physics department, the Research Laboratory of Electronics
and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Harvard Center for
Ultracold Atoms, funded by the National Science Foundation.

Ketterle, Leanhardt and Pritchard co-authored the low-temperature
paper, scheduled to appear in the September 12 issue of Science.

NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research
and the Army Research Office funded the research. Ketterle conducts
research under NASA's Fundamental Physics in Physical Sciences
Research Program, part of the agency's Office of Biological and
Physical Research, Washington. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif., a division of the California Institute of
Technology, Pasadena, manages the Fundamental Physics Program.

For information about NASA's Fundamental Physics Program on the
Internet, visit:

http://funphysics.jpl.nasa.gov http://funphysics.jpl.nasa.gov/ or
http://spaceresearch.nasa.gov http://spaceresearch.nasa.gov/ .

More information about Ketterle's research is available at:

http://cua.mit.edu/ketterle_group/.

For more information about NASA programs on the Internet, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov http://www.nasa.gov/ .

-end-

 




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