HomeSciencePhysicsA Dense, Cold Gas of Europium Atoms

A Dense, Cold Gas of Europium Atoms

&bullet; Physics 15, s157

A Bose-Einstein condensate of europium atoms gives a brand new experimental platform for finding out quantum spin interactions.

Since the 1995 creation of the first Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), researchers have cooled and confined atoms into BECs to study various problems in quantum many-body systems. A BEC’s observable properties depend on the atom being confined. Thus, researchers want to create condensates from as many atomic species as possible. To that end, Yuki Miyazawa of the Tokyo Institute of Technology and his colleagues have now formed a BEC from europium atoms [1]. Europium atoms have a uncommon symmetric digital construction, and so they work together with each other by way of robust, magnetic dipole-dipole interactions. This mixture of options ought to result in a BEC during which the spin-dependent interactions of atoms are smaller than their dipole interactions, an unexplored regime. Thus, the examine permits for the potential for delving into new spin-related phenomena.

To create a BEC from europium, Miyazawa and colleagues confined europium atoms in an optical entice produced from two crossed lasers. Reducing the ability of one of many lasers, the staff evaporatively cooled the atoms whereas holding them concentrated within the area the place the lasers crossed.

The staff produced a BEC containing

$5×1{0}^{4}$

atoms. Using established strategies for measuring the short-range interactions between atoms, Miyazawa and colleagues discovered that they might manipulate the power of those interactions by making use of a really low magnetic subject to the BEC. The staff says that this management may allow researchers to create novel BEC quantum phases utilizing this method.

In photos of the atoms’ spatial distributions, the staff additionally discovered proof that each collapse of the BEC and construction formation inside it resulted from the robust dipolar interactions of the atoms. This discovering signifies that these dipolar actions persist throughout the BEC and compete with spin-dependent interactions.

–Rachel Berkowitz

Rachel Berkowitz is a Corresponding Editor for Physics Magazine based mostly in Vancouver, Canada.

References

1. Y. Miyazawa et al., “Bose-Einstein condensation of europium,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 223401 (2022).

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