The Quest To Make Super-Cold Quantum Blobs in Space (wired.com) 44
Last January in northern Sweden, a German-led team of physicists loaded a curious machine onto an unmanned rocket. The payload, about as tall as a single-story apartment, was essentially a custom-made freezer -- a vacuum chamber, with a small chip and lasers within, that could cool single atoms near absolute zero.
It may sound like a bizarre experiment, but it is something physicists have been aching to do for years. They launched the rocket about 90 miles past the atmosphere's boundary of outer space, monitoring a livestream from a heated building nearby. Then, just 17 minutes later, they watched as the freezer plummeted back down to Earth, landing via parachute on snowy ground 40 miles from the launch site. Wired elaborates: See, the freezer that the Germans launched has the ability to make atoms clump together in a cloud-like blob called a Bose-Einstein condensate -- a phase of matter that exhibits some truly bizarre properties. It's delicate enough to respond to tiny fluctuations in gravity and electromagnetic fields, which means it could someday make for a super-precise sensor in space. But down on Earth, it tends to collapse in a matter of milliseconds because of gravity. So the blobs had to go to space. Since the late '90s, physicists have been developing machines that can autonomously assemble and control the blobs during spaceflight. With this rocket launch, they've succeeded. The group in Germany, led by physicist Ernst Rasel of University of Hannover, just released pictures of blobs they managed to create [PDF], as well as precise measurements of how they jiggled during their brief trip. "They've essentially laid the groundwork to show that you can actually do this, and it's not totally insane," says physicist Nathan Lundblad of Bates College.
It may sound like a bizarre experiment, but it is something physicists have been aching to do for years. They launched the rocket about 90 miles past the atmosphere's boundary of outer space, monitoring a livestream from a heated building nearby. Then, just 17 minutes later, they watched as the freezer plummeted back down to Earth, landing via parachute on snowy ground 40 miles from the launch site. Wired elaborates: See, the freezer that the Germans launched has the ability to make atoms clump together in a cloud-like blob called a Bose-Einstein condensate -- a phase of matter that exhibits some truly bizarre properties. It's delicate enough to respond to tiny fluctuations in gravity and electromagnetic fields, which means it could someday make for a super-precise sensor in space. But down on Earth, it tends to collapse in a matter of milliseconds because of gravity. So the blobs had to go to space. Since the late '90s, physicists have been developing machines that can autonomously assemble and control the blobs during spaceflight. With this rocket launch, they've succeeded. The group in Germany, led by physicist Ernst Rasel of University of Hannover, just released pictures of blobs they managed to create [PDF], as well as precise measurements of how they jiggled during their brief trip. "They've essentially laid the groundwork to show that you can actually do this, and it's not totally insane," says physicist Nathan Lundblad of Bates College.
Question (Score:3)
For the sake of argument, let's say one could get the temperature down to absolute zero. Let us further assume a single atom is subjected to this temperature.
Would one be able to "freeze" the atom so that its constituent parts would be immobile and visible? Or would it fall apart?
What happens to an atom at absolute zero?
Re: (Score:3)
Same thing that happens to an atom traveling at the speed of light.
It's a meaningless question. Like c, 0K is unattainable. You can only approach it asymptotically.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
not quite true. At the quantum level you can actually obtain negative temperature. Temperature becomes a bit less meaningful, it is about energy, and an electron with zero energy is still as much a wave function as it always is.
(temperature is how much entropy changes when you add energy. Normally that is positive, but at a quantum level you can create situations where there are fewer possible states when you increase the energy, thus negative temperature. It is like eggs in an egg carton, 2 eggs have m
Re:Question (Score:5, Informative)
For the sake of argument, let's say one could get the temperature down to absolute zero. Let us further assume a single atom is subjected to this temperature. Would one be able to "freeze" the atom so that its constituent parts would be immobile and visible?
No. The "component parts" would be in their ground-state wave function. They would not suddenly become "visible."
Or would it fall apart?
No. Zero temperature does not cancel out the coulomb force that bind electrons onto the atoms
What happens to an atom at absolute zero?
Nothing much happens to an individual atom. The Bose-Einstein condensate applies to groups of atoms.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for the explanation and breaking down what I asked about.
I understand the Bose-Einstein condensate is about groups of atoms, but it got me thinking about individual atoms and absolute zero.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
For the sake of argument, let's say one could get the temperature down to absolute zero. Let us further assume a single atom is subjected to this temperature.
Would one be able to "freeze" the atom so that its constituent parts would be immobile and visible? Or would it fall apart?
What happens to an atom at absolute zero?
From my 4000 level Quantum Mechanics course, a single atom cannot reach absolute zero. There are multiple forces at work here and the electron will not just fall into the nucleus or fly off but continues to move around the nucleus which causes a wiggle which means it has a temperature. We figured out what that temperature would be which ended up like something around 2/3 K. I'm sure it was a simplistic thought experiment that does not really express what is going on according to modern physics, but there yo
Super cold blobs (Score:5, Funny)
They're sending Huckabee Sanders into space, wha?
Re: (Score:2)
Makes sense. Restaurants here are refusing to serve her, so she should go back to her home planet.
Wait!!! (Score:2)
Back in the '50s, I learned that you get rid of the Blob by freezing it!
Now you need the cold to make the Blob????
Re: (Score:2)
Quantum boobs (Score:2, Funny)
My ex has super cold quantum boobs. Not need to go to space to find them. They are both within reach and unreachable at the same time. Truly quantum! And cold... so cold...
New unit of height! for Space Buildings (Score:2)
They launched the rocket about 90 miles past the atmosphere's boundary of outer space, monitoring a livestream from a heated building nearby.
How tall was the heated building? (in units of "single-story apartment")
Re: (Score:2)
I too wish to know more about this "heated building"....
Why was it heated? How far about absolute zero was the heating? Were lasers used in this heating process?
Nevermind this outer space hooey, I need to know more about this building that allegedly has been heated to some degree...
Quest to make super-cold quantum blobs in Space (Score:2)
So it's a... Space Quest?
Does anyone know how to contact Roger Wilco?
Terrible story (Score:2)
The payload, about as tall as a single-story apartment
This is a strange description. What does "apartment" add to it, aside from it being used to flower the descriptions of 3-story things, of which normal homes are usually not.
Re: (Score:3)
It also hung in the air exactly the way bricks don't.
Re: (Score:2)
The payload, about as tall as a single-story apartment
They could have just said, "the 10-foot tall payload", but it seems that someone had a word count to reach.
Re: (Score:2)
I know. Why not just say it's 0.33 libraries of congress high and be done with it. Or 1/3rd for the imperial folk.
Shouldn't this experiment be run from the ISS? (Score:2)
The brief description is vague about the actual size of the payload, but if it can be sent up as a supply-rocket mission to operate in station with the ISS (not ON the ISS, because of the need for cryogenic conditions and to avoid the possibility of getting their freezer back with nothing in it but a handwritten note saying "Sorry! I got hungry and used Bose-Einstein concentrate on my sorbet - Feodor") for an extended period of time.
Run this way, the experiment would not be bound by the tight time constrain