The discovery of gravitational waves at the ground-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in Louisiana earned three physicists a Nobel Prize in 2017. But perhaps even more exciting than this historic first were the results of experiments the researchers did with the BEC, which showed that it may be possible to measure gravitational waves in space with more precision than is done on Earth. The slower the atoms are moving, the lower the temperature will be.ĭuring the MAIUS mission, a sample of rubidium atoms was cooled to create the first BEC in space. In a head-on collision, this causes the atom to lose momentum, or slow down. That’s because those photons have their own momentum to begin with, and when an atom absorbs a photon, it also absorbs the photon’s momentum. To make the atoms as cold as possible, scientists use a method called “ laser cooling.” When a laser beam blasts a photon (or a particle of light) at an atom, the photon gets absorbed by the atom and reduces its momentum in the process. By cooling a group of atoms until they all occupy the same low-energy state, their wavelengths stretch across the entire atomic cloud and become identical. Particles with higher energies exhibit shorter wavelengths, while those with low energies have longer wavelengths. A particle’s wavelength is directly related to its temperature. This phenomenon is the result of a quantum mechanics principle known as wave-particle duality, which says that light and matter exhibit properties of both particles and waves. In other words, the atoms become impossible to tell apart, and the clump starts behaving like a single atom. When atoms get cold enough, they stop behaving like individual atoms and clump together while occupying the same, lowest-possible energy state. 17) in the journal Nature.Ī Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is a state of matter that forms when a cloud of atoms is cooled to temperatures approaching absolute zero, or 0 Kelvin, which is equal to minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 273.15 degrees Celsius). Results from the study were published today (Oct. Not only did the mission succeed in creating the first space-based Bose-Einstein condensate, but the researchers also did more than 100 experiments with this sample during the 6-minute spaceflight. The Matter-Wave Interferometry in Microgravity experiment (MAIUS-1) launched on a sounding rocket from the Esrange Space Center in Sweden on Jan. Their findings could lay the groundwork for a new way to search for gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time. By launching a tiny, atom-packed chip into space and blasting it with lasers, German scientists have for the first time created an exotic state of matter known as a Bose-Einstein condensate in space.
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