Rice Physicists Create State of Matter with Surprise Element

CONTACT: Lia Unrau
PHONE: 831-4793

RICE PHYSICISTS CREATE STATE OF MATTER WITH SURPRISE ELEMENT

Using an element that theoretically
shouldn’t have worked, Rice University physicists have created the
Bose-Einstein condensate, an elusive new gaseous state of matter
that Albert Einstein theorized 71 years ago, by cooling lithium
atoms to a temperature barely above absolute zero.

A paper detailing the Rice team’s accomplishment will be
published in the Aug. 28 issue of Physical Review Letters.

The formation of the Bose-Einstein condensate with lithium atoms
came as a surprise because lithium atoms attract each other at low
temperatures, leading theorists to believe that the gas would
collapse into a liquid or solid, unable to form a gas condensate
state. Investigations of Bose-Einstein condensation may lead to a
better understanding of the related phenomenon of superconductivity.

The Rice team consists of Randall Hulet, associate professor of
physics, graduate students Curtis Bradley and Cass Sackett, and
Jeffrey Tollett, a 1995 Rice doctoral graduate. Contact: Rice
associate professor Randy Hulet at (713) 527-6087 or by E-mail at
randy@atomcool.rice.edu, or Lia Unrau at (713) 831-4793 or unrau@rice.edu.

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