TOPIC - BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATION

PRESENTED BY-
SOURAV SADHUKHAN
REG. NO.-Y16273024

DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS
DR. HARISINGH GOUR UNIVERSITY, SAGAR
When Atoms Become Waves
 Table of Contents
• What is a BEC?
• Some history
• How to make one in lab?
– Laser cooling
– Magnetic trapping
– Evaporative cooling
• What are the properties of a BEC?
• Current researches
• Applications
• A BEC is a gaseous superfluid phase formed by
atoms (mostly alkali metals) at very low
temperatures
• Predicted by S. Bose and Einstein in the 1920’s
based on statistical mechanics
• Cooling bosonic atoms to low temps causes
condensing into the lowest available quantum
state (ground orbital)
– Particles in the condensate have the same wave
function Ψ
• Bose-Einstein distribution function
F(E,T) = [exp((E-μ)/kT)-1]-1
 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
• In 1924 S.N.Bose derived the famous Bose statistics.
• Einstein applied the Bose method to particles, predicting
BEC
• Steven Chu (Stanford) and colleagues won Nobel Prize in
1997 for optical molasses (discovered at Bell Labs in
1985)
• JILA group at Colorado, Boulder and at MIT successfully
creates first BEC in 1995
• Prof. Cornell,Wolfgang & Wieman win 2001 Nobel Prize
for creating BEC with Rubidium
 BOSONS AND FERMIONS

FERMION BOSON
• Not all particles can have BEC. This is related to the spin of the particles.
•The spin quantum number of a particle can be an integer or a half-integer.
•Single protons, neutrons and electrons have a spin of ½. They are called fermions.
They cannot appear in the same quantum state. BEC cannot take place.

•Some atoms contain an even number of fermions. They have a total spin of whole
number. They are called bosons.

•Bosons show strong “social” behaviour, and can have BEC.

•Example: A 23Na atom has 11 protons, 12 neutrons and 11 electrons.

 The Material For BEC

•BEC was found in alkali metals e.g. 87Rb , 23Na, 7Li because:
•They are bosons.
•Each atom is a small magnetic compass, so that a cooling
technique called magnetic cooling can work.
•The atoms have a small repulsion, so that they do not liquefy
or solidify down to a very low temperature.
Boson and Fermion Gases Below 1 mK
In these Rice University
images of atomic clouds,
those of 7Li (a boson with
4 neutrons) continue to
collapse as the
temperature is lowered.
Since identical fermions
cannot occupy the
same space (the Pauli
exclusion principle), the
atomic cloud of 6Li (a
fermion with 3 neutrons)
shows a smaller collapse.
 CRITERION FOR BOSE EINSTEIN CONDENSATION

De Broglie (1929 Nobel Prize winner) proposed that all matter is

h
composed of waves. Their wavelengths are given by   mv

Fig: Criterion for Bose-Einstein condensation.

At high temperatures, a weakly interacting gas
can be treated as a system of “billiard balls.” In
a simplified quantum description, the particles
can be regarded as
Wave packets with an extension λdB. At the
BEC transition temperature, λdB becomes
comparable to the distance d between
particles, and a Bose-Einstein condensate
forms (in the case of bosonic particles). As the
temperature approaches zero, the thermal
cloud disappears leaving a pure Bose
condensate.

REFERENCE:Massachusetts Institute of Technology

 How to make a BEC ?

• Heat the atoms: 600 K (gas)

• Confine them in a beam
• Decelerate the beam
• Trap the atoms (Magneto Optical Trap)
• Magnetic Trapping (avoid atoms recoil by
spontaneous emission and random
absorption)
• Evaporative Cooling
 LASER COOLING

•The technique of laser cooling was developed by the winners of the

1997 Nobel Prize winners.[STEVEN CHU,CLAUDE COHEN,WILLIAM D.PHILLIPS]
•In the physical world, the lowest temperatures approach a limit of –
273oC. This is called the absolute zero. Nothing can be as cold as the
absolute zero because all atomic and subatomic motions stop.
•Laser cooling can get to the low temperature of 0.18K (1 K= 10-6K).

REFERENCE: Homepage of the Nobel e-Museum( http://www.nobel.se/).

BEC Homepage at the University of Colorado
 Ping-pong Balls

•Photons are particles. They carry momenta like ping-pong balls.

You can slow the motion of an atom by bouncing laser light off the
atoms
 Tuning the Laser
•Only laser light with the
correct colour (frequency)
can be absorbed by the
atoms.

•If the colour is wrong, the

atoms cannot absorb the
photons.
 DOPPLER EFFECT
Problem: The laser can slow the
approaching atoms, but it can
also blast off the receding ones.

Solution: Use Doppler shift.

When the atom is receding
from the laser source, the
wavelength is lengthened and
there is a redshift.

•When the atom is approaching

the laser source, the
wavelength is shortened and
there is a blueshift.
 Laser Trapping

•Suppose the laser has the right colour for the photons to be absorbed
by an approaching atom, then the atom will be slowed down.
•However, the laser will not have the right colour for the photons to be
absorbed by the receding atom because of Doppler effect. Hence the
atom will not change in this case.
•When lasers are sent in from all the different directions, the atoms
can get cold very quickly.
•Radiation pressure opposes atom’s tendency to drift away from
center
•Often done with 6 laser beams
 MAGNETIC TRAPPING

•The atoms behave as tiny magnetic dipoles. They can be

pulled by magnetic fields.
•A magnetic field can be designed to push the atoms
inwards from both sides, forming a magnetic trap.
•Cooling and trapping gets temp in range of 10-100μK and
109 atoms
•This is still ~100X too hot to form a BEC
•REFERENCE:http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/b
ose ,hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu
 Evaporative Cooling
• The most energetic particles
escape the magnetic potential

• This reduces the average

thermal energy of the sample

• Number of atoms reduces from

~109 to ~107

REFERENCE:
http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/bose.html
 When exactly does this occur?

• In terms of the Einstein condensation temperature:

τE = 2πħ2 . (n/2.6)2/3
mk
– Below this value, ground orbital occupancy is macroscopic

• In terms of the number density,

n = N/V = 2.6/λ3DB
λDB = h · (2πmkτ)-1/2
(Derived in-STATISTICAL MECHANICS BY B K AGARWAL & MELVIN EISNER)
What does a Bose-Einstein condensate look like?
It looks like a dense little lump in the bottom of the magnetic
trap/bowl ; kind of like a drop of water condensing out of damp
air onto a cold bowl. When it first forms, though, the condensate
is still surrounded by the normal gas atoms, so it looks a bit like a
pit inside a cherry. The way Wieman and Cornell first looked at it
was to turn off the trap, and then, after a little while, take a
snapshot picture of the cloud. When they got the cloud cold
enough, they could see a very dense blob form in the center. We
can see this in the pictures of their actual data as they cool the
atoms from 400 degree above absolute zero down to 50 billionths
of a BEC achieved in several atoms.
 Observation of Bose-Einstein condensation by absorption imaging. Shown is
absorption vs. two spatial dimensions. The left picture shows an expanding cloud
cooled to just above the transition point; middle: just after the condensate
appeared; right: after further evaporative cooling has left an almost pure
condensate. The width of the images is 1.0 mm.

REFERENCE: Department of Physics and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts

Institute of Technology, Cambridge,
 Current Research

• BEC achieved in several atoms.

• Strange Properties:
– Superfluidity
– Slowing of light
• Wave-like phenomena in atoms.
– Interference between two condensates.
• Atom Laser
– Coherent Matter Waves
 Applications

• Atom lasers
• Sensitive measurement instruments
• Improved ability to manipulate matter
waves
• Many other things we can’t even
imagine yet