From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Thu Jul 19 2001 - 07:04:05 MDT
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/07/010719080507.htm
<<More recently, using the rubidium-85 isotope, the group has been "tuning"
the interactions between the BEC atoms to make them attractive or repulsive
by exposing the atoms to magnetic fields, Wieman said. To create the new BEC
phenomenon, they cooled the matter to 3 billionths of a degree above absolute
zero, now the lowest temperature ever achieved.
A paper on the subject is being published in the July 19 issue of Nature.
Authers include Wieman of CU and JILA, Cornell of JILA and NIST, associate
researchers Elizabeth Donley and Simon Cornish of CU and JILA, and CU
graduate students Neil Claussen and Jacob Roberts.
JILA is a joint institute of CU-Boulder and NIST headquartered on campus. By
tinkering with the magnetic fields, the researchers have been able to shrink
the condensate, which is followed by a tiny explosion -- similar in some ways
to a microscopic supernova explosion and which Wieman’s team has dubbed a
"Bosenova." About half of the original atoms appear to vanish during the
process, he said. >>
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