Latest Superfluid Stories

Scientists at JILA, working with Italian theorists, have discovered another notable similarity between ultracold atomic gases and high-temperature superconductors, suggesting there may be a relatively simple shared explanation for equivalent behaviors of the two very different systems.Described in Nature Physics,* the new research lends more support to the idea that JILA studies of superfluidity (flow with zero friction) in atomic gases may help scientists understand far more complicated...

In the May 7 edition of Physical Review Letters, a journal of the American Physical Society, an international team led by University of Delaware researchers reports new findings about helium that may lead to more accurate standards for how temperature and pressure are measured. In the article, highlighted as an "Editor's Suggestion" by the journal, the scientists provide a new theoretical computation of the force acting between a pair of helium atoms, referred to as "pair potential," that is...

Transitions are exciting. And at temperatures close to absolute zero, studying the transition from one quantum phase to another tantalizes physicists looking for a deeper understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe.Now a team of scientists at the University of Chicago has created the first direct images of the transition between phases of ultracold cesium gas, as it changes from normal to superfluid to Mott insulator, making it possible to "see" this phenomenon as it...

If physicists lived in Flatland"”the fictional two-dimensional world invented by Edwin Abbott in his 1884 novel"”some of their quantum physics experiments would turn out differently (not just thinner) than those in our world. The distinction has taken another step from speculative fiction to real-world puzzle with a paper* from the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) reporting on a Flatland arrangement of ultracold gas atoms. The new results, which don't quite jibe with earlier Flatland...

Physicists at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland have proposed a recipe for turning ultracold "boson" atoms"”the ingredients of Bose-Einstein condensates"”into a "supersolid," an exotic state of matter that behaves simultaneously as a solid and a friction-free superfluid. While scientists have found evidence for supersolids in complex liquid helium mixtures, a supersolid formed from such weakly...

University of Arizona scientists experimenting with some of the coldest gases in the universe have discovered that when atoms in the gas get cold enough, they can spontaneously spin up into what might be described as quantum mechanical twisters or hurricanes.The surprising experimental results agree with independent numerical simulations produced by collaborating scientists at the University of Queensland in Australia. The Arizona and Queensland researchers are reporting the results of the...

At last month's Cosmology Meets Condensed Matter conference in London, it emerged that space-time could be simulated in the lab using strange, unique substances known as "superfluids", which flow without resistance and can even climb up the walls of jars. The equations governing the particles inside the superfluids are similar to those that represent the early universe, said Ray Rivers at Imperial College London. "We hope that we can use these to check things in the lab that frankly we don't...

June 22, 2005Physicists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created the first example of a high-temperature superfluid: a new state of matter in which the atoms in a gas can move with no friction or slowing down whatsoever.Reported in the June 23 issue of journal Nature, the work is closely related to the superconductivity of electrons in metals. According to Wolfgang Ketterle, the Nobel laureate who heads the MIT group, observations of superfluids may help solve lingering...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- MIT scientists have brought a supercool end to a heated race among physicists: They have become the first to create a new type of matter, a gas of atoms that shows high-temperature superfluidity. Their work, to be reported in the June 23 issue of Nature, is closely related to the superconductivity of electrons in metals. Observations of superfluids may help solve lingering questions about high-temperature superconductivity, which has widespread applications for magnets,...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - MIT scientists have brought a supercool end to a heated race among physicists: They have become the first to create a new type of matter, a gas of atoms that shows high-temperature superfluidity. Their work, to be reported in the June 23 issue of Nature, is closely related to the superconductivity of electrons in metals. Observations of superfluids may help solve lingering questions about high-temperature superconductivity, which has widespread applications for magnets,...