LC14467 - Our work provides the most direct realization of an experiment proposed by Einstein almost 90 years ago, and makes a major advance in the worldwide effort on “quantum simulation”.
In 1925 Einstein predicted that, at temperatures near absolute zero, particles in a gas can lose their individuality and unify into a single quantum object - a new state of matter now called a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). A BEC was finally realized in an atomic gas in 1995, and is now widely used for studies of exotic quantum phenomena. Beyond testing Einstein’s hypothesis, BECs offer a flexible experimental platform for controlled simulation of many related phenomena that occur in other physical systems, from superconductors to neutron stars.
However, while both the condensate envisioned by Einstein and real materials such as superconductors are spatially uniform, atomic BECs are normally produced in parabolic-shaped atom traps with spatially varying atomic density. This often fundamentally alters the behavior of the gas and makes a direct comparison with theories of uniform systems difficult. We have now realized the first atomic BEC in a spatially uniform gas, confined in an “optical box” trap. This provides the textbook realization of Einstein’s original proposal and will in the future allow a more direct simulation of other quantum systems.
