Scientists Create New Form of Matter

soren100 writes "Yahoo News has a story about scientists creating a sixth form of matter. They are calling their new state of matter a 'fermionic condensate.' Somehow they got potassium atoms to form pairs similar to the 'Cooper pairs' that make superconducting possible. Maybe any quantum physicists around can tell us more about this, but it certainly sounds pretty revolutionary. The scientists are predicting that this will lead to 'room temperature solid' superconductors, which in turn will enable us to have better electricity generators, more efficient electric motors, and (our favorite) cheaper maglev trains."

Too many references to superconductors

[Anonymous Coward]

These guys keep talking about superconductors but the fact remains that this is fundamental research with no real applications now or even in the near future.

Smacks like "gotta tell them at least about some possible application to keep us funded"-talk.

Re:Sixth form of matter?

[pegasustonans]

"The new matter form is called a fermionic condensate and it is the sixth known form of matter -- after gases, solids, liquids, plasma and a Bose-Einstein condensate, created only in 1995." Come on people, RTFA already... :)

Re:Maglev in U.S.

[line.at.infinity]

Actually, there aren't that many overseas, none of them are long or cost-effective. Some amusement parks have it (Disney World's "Train of Tomorrow,"). IIRC there's one in Osaka, Japan, but it runs wicked slow due to safety concerns.

Re:Maglev in U.S.

[TehHustler]

The only one I can think of here in the UK is the one between Birmingham Airport and the Birmingham Exhibition Centres, if its still there, that is. I remember it about 10 years ago, maybe more.

A more in depth article on the subject

[Guy_Warwick]

Deborah Jin the team leader gives more of an idea of her work in this article. http://physicsweb.org/article/world/15/4/7

The original press release

[Hittite Creosote]

From Colorado University, the original press release is here [colorado.edu].

If you want the actual paper, and have access to the journal, it's published on the online version of Physics Review Letters [aps.org] Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 040403 (2004)

abstract here [aip.org] for those with access.

Re:Sixth form of matter?

[mainframemouse]

"Bose-Einstein condensate" was created in 1995, Douglas Adams was very much alive and kicking.

HIgh Tc

[geordieboy]

I think this is possibly a big step towards room temperature superconductivity. The point is that in normal (even high Tc) superconductors, the forces between the cooper pairs are rather weak, hence the need to cool to at least 70K or so to get the effect. In this fermionic stuff, the force is a little stronger (at least, this is claimed in the article). Thus it may be possible to design a material which uses the same principle as the fermionic gas but in the form of a solid material at say 300K (just as high Tc superconductors are essentially solid B-E condensates, more or less).
BTW, I'm a cosmologist, not a condensed matter person, so I could be talking out of my arse.

The Original Article

[narftrek]

Here's [nist.gov] the original (and official in my book) article.
I read this yesterday and thought to myself "wow this would make a great /. article." Lo and behold it shows up here. Damn work for blocking non .gov addresses!!

You're thinking of monorails

[jeti]

You're thinking of monorails.
This is a maglev [about.com].
It routinely does 267 mph.

Re:Superconductor hype

[danila]

Here is a quote from a great E2 writeup [everything2.com] by wheloc:

The fun thing about bosons is that any collection of things which acts sortta like a particle, and who's spins sum to some integer value, will act like a boson. If, for example, you get two electrons traveling together and reduce their temperature sufficiently under the right conditions they will begin to act like a single particle. If one has a spin of +1/2 and the other has a spin of -1/2 then the composite "particle" will have a total spin of 0, effectively making it a boson (this special type of boson is called a "Cooper pair"). Fermions bump into each other, bosons do not. Resistance in a wire (as in Ohm's Law) is caused by electrons bumping into each other. If all the electrons form Cooper pairs then this no longer happens, and electricity can flow through a material much better. This is the principle behind superconductivity.

Apparently, what these guys did was closely related to forming Cooper pairs. When they found out other things related to this, we might be able to understand how to create these pairs at +25C. Right now one of the requirements seems to be to cool down the fermions, but if we find a way around...

Re:Practical application

[infolib]

The article seems to highly stress the practical application of this new form of matter.

That is to say the least. It talks about superconductors for maglev trains etc. but in reality the new form of matter is a small blob of gas hanging trapped by lasers in a vacuum chamber. The only connection is that these studies may help us develop better theories about how superconductors work. (The current theories on high-temp superconductors are quite weak). A less popular introduction to Jins work is here [physicsweb.org], but it's not quite recent.

What are the safety and health issues involved in using this in 'practical applications'?

None. There are no practical applications yet, and when you look at the experiment it's just a submillimeter blob of potassium. The moment someone disturbs the experiment it will disintegrate and fill the vacuum chamber with very dilute potassium gas. Potassium can be dangerous, but there's a thousand times more in the bin they take it from, and I'm not worried about that at all.

Superconductors

[pmj]

I've seen lots of posts saying "this has nothing to do with room temperature superconductors, but really cold gasses!" and whatnot.

The point is that the pairing formation of these fermions is potentially related to the Cooper pairing in electrons (also fermions). While it obviously isn't going to lead directly to a high temperature superconductor, the better we understand the mechanism IN GENERAL, the easier it will be for materials scientists and other condensed matter physicists to start figuring out how to get the critical temperature of REGULAR, SOLID superconductors up.

In that regard, this is big news.

Re:Practical application

[Anonymous Coward]

The article seems to highly stress the practical application of this new form of matter. Doesn't this seem too optimistic or unrealistic?

True. As physicists in fundamental research, we are forced to exagerate the possible applications. Funding organizations don't get the fact that you cannot force the invention of new technology. That is always a spin-off from fundamental research and you cannot predict which is going to provide you with nice goodies that people can buy.

If you want to get funding for a Bose Einstein condensate, you say you do it to make a better clock, which can be used for better GPS systems. While theoretically it is true that a better clock will improve GPS, it is definitely not what we are worried about when we are playing around with our atoms.

If it's a new form of matter, surely there must be properties which even researchers are unsure about.

Not really. This is not new physics in the sense of new exotic elementary particles. It all derives from old fashioned quantum physics, it's just that there are implications of that theory that might not be completely known yet. Furthermore, from a condensed matter physics point of view, this fermionic condensate is not a really new state of matter. It's the same state of matter, only now with atoms (which have a dipolar interaction) instead of electrons (which have a repulsive coulomb interaction, but also an attractive interaction due to the ionic background).


What are the safety and health issues involved in using this in 'practical applications'?

None. These condensates are extremely fragile and consist of a few million atoms. When you read about atoms contained in magnetic field and vacuum chambers, you should not think about fusion reactors and stuff like that. The vacuum chamber is not there to contain the atom, but to keep the air out. For these experiments, the presure in the chamber need to be 14 orders of magnitude lower then atmospheric pressure, because the relatively hot molecules in the air will otherwise collide with your trapped atoms and heat them up, destroying your precious condensate.

Re:Superconductor hype

[Bananenrepublik]

If one has a spin of +1/2 and the other has a spin of -1/2 then the composite "particle" will have a total spin of 0
This part is bogus, spin addition is more complicated than that. Whether you get a spin 0, 1/2 or 1 composite particle depends on the proper superposition of pair states. You can get an integer spin particle by combining two half-integer spin particles.

WRT the article, I don't see why they talk about having created a new state of matter. This is wrong, a claim only made up to attract attention. Superfluid Helium II is a Bose-Einstein-condensate of Helium 3, which has a half-integer spin -- exactly the same thing. There is one interesting difference, though: they managed to pick fairly heavy atoms, Potassium is much heavier than Helium.

Disclaimer: I'm a graduate student in physics.

Re:Maglev in U.S.

[GlassMaster]

The only maglev train in the U.S. that I am aware of is a prototype at Old Dominion University. This project was started several years ago and has yet to be completed due to insufficient funding (or running way over budget). ODU press release [odu.edu]

Re:Connective tissue

[Anonymous Coward]

They cooled potassium gas to a billionth of a degree C above absolute zero or minus 459 degrees F
A billionth of a degree C above absolute zero is the same exact thing as a billionth of a Kelvin. You niggle inappropriately.

Important Point

[Maxdan]

A lot of people seem to be saying this has nothing to do with superconductivity and the scientists are deliberately misleading the press. The success of the group was the formation of this condonsate at such a high temperature. I know it doesn't sound high, but it is orders of magnitude above when such a condensate should theoretically form. They acheived this by manipulating other factors in the materials local environment (a particular magnetic field). Superconductors form a similar condensate and if the condonsate could be formed at higher temperature by changing some environmental factor other than temperature, it may be possible to create a room temperature superconductor. I think thats the point that was been made and would have been one of the motivating factors for the research.

the Pauli Exclusion Principle...

[karlandtanya]

Says that

"Only one fermion of a given type is allowed to be in a specific quantum state. A quantum state is a discrete level that can be labeled. The labeling gives information about the spatial characteristics (e.g. the orbit) and the spin of the particle. Two electrons can exist in the same quantum orbital, but only if they have different spin states. No two electrons of the same spin can occupy the same orbital state. "

That's why this is interesting.

yeah, I've got a degree in it. But engineering pays better.

Just google for "Pauli Exclusion Principle" and Fermion.

A Physicist's Answer

[jpflip]

It's not really that simple. The hydrogen atom (taken as a whole) is ALWAYS a boson, there's no doubt about that - the spins add up right. What you are asking about, however, is whether you can see any interesting condensation effects because of it. That turns out to be very difficult to arrange. You need to get a whole bunch of hydrogen atoms together in exactly the same state (no excited states, and they all must be moving with the same velocity). More importantly, quantum effects (like condensation) only become important when the (excuse the jargon) wavefunctions of the particles begin to substantially overlap. Basically, the "particles" are a little smeared out by quantum mechanics, and you only get quantum weirdness when these smears overlap. The size of the smear is inversely proportional to the mass of the object. Hydrogen atoms are 2000 times heavier than electrons, and so they have to be brought to very high densities before they can behave this way. The upshot is that the only way we know to do this is to bring the atoms to a nearly dead stop (hence EXTREME cold) in a small region and watch the magic happen. So the atoms are always boson, but only under extreme conditions do we care.

hyper-cold and hyper-hot new states of matter

[peter303]

Note these new states of matter occur at super-cold or super-hot conditions. At super-cold the atoms stop motion and engage in bizaire quantum mingled quantum states. You needed a micro-degree about absolute zero for Bose matter and a nano-degee for fermatic matter.
There was a physics conference earlier in january debating whether gluon plasmas have been seen or not. When you heat and collide protons to billions of degrees, almost the speed of light, they may just merge into one big quark soup, not seen since the Big Bang.

More Information

[InfoSec]

There's a VERY detailed article about the whole thing over at Physics Web [physicsweb.org].

Re:Superconductor hype

[puppet10]

I'll let Weimann (researcher at JILA, Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics, his group was the first to create a BEC) do my talking for me since I only have an overview understanding of the topic:

"Although superfluid helium exists in conditions much warmer than the Bose-Einstein condensate that the Colorado researchers made, it is widely considered a Bose-Einstein condensate, even though it is in a very different sort of system than Einstein was talking about."[1 [whyfiles.org]]

Additionally in a Bose condensed gas strong interactions in the fluid state are eliminated making the system easier to understand and measure its properties.[2 [physicsweb.org], 3 [physicsweb.org]]

So while it may be arguable whether its a new state of matter, based on how different the state is from a superfluid state, it is important because it makes the study of these systems in detail possible by eliminating many confounding interactions.[2 [physicsweb.org]]

Re:Sixth form of matter?

[squaretorus]

stupidly I was refering to the previous name without being explicit about this - now roughly 300 people have told me that Mr Adams is dead, a fact I know and feel bad about every time I think 'i didnt finish that dirk gently book' - i didnt finish it because neither did he!

Pratchett is funny - but with no disrespect to the man, Adams pisses all over his big funny hat!

Re:Potassium Gas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of it like this; if you have one atom of potassium, is it a gas, liquid or solid? Now have 1000 individual atoms (not in a metal lattice), they have the same degrees of freedom as a gas does. For all intense and purposes, it is a gas.

The process of cooling and trapping atoms, is to inject a relatively small number of atom in to a vaccuum chamber. The atoms behave as a gas.

Re:Logic?

[wurp]

Aha! Now I can actually see where you're coming from, and refute it, I think... can you name a 'quantummy effect' that happens at liquid nitrogen temps (other than superconductivity ;), and not at room temp? I can't either, and that's what I base my conviction that we don't know when we'll see room temp superconductivity, but it may as likely be soon as late.

I think we're arguing based on the same "feel" for what enables superconductivity, I just have different beliefs about where those things happen than you do. To me, the big barrier was making it 30 kelvins away from absolute zero, which is the zone of weirdness. Once it's out of that weirdness zone, it seems like "merely" a technical problem. That said, if you had said we probably won't see it in 20 years, I would have been right there with you. 50, and I would have been suspicious. However, for 100 years out, I think we are talking out of our hat to project anything other than that things will be very different.

It's nice to know that our feelings for each other are mutual. ;-)