Bose-Einstein Condensates and Extra Dimensions

[ICN5D]

Way back, I came across an amazing article on condensed matter physics. It talked about how they are made, what they do, and what the idea is behind the strange effects. This state of matter is at the limits of our quantum understanding, and it's teaching us new, incredible things. Scientists create the stuff using atoms that are monoatomic (stable by themselves), i.e., do not need double bonding as in O2. They then corral these atoms together in a magnetic bottle, and use a laser to cool them to nanokelvin temperatures. At really cold temps, atoms start behaving more like waves than solid billiard balls. The collisions between them are slowed and softened so much, that their wave parts have enough time to interact. What ends up happening in some cases, is an ultra-cold cloud of atoms suddenly divides into multiple clouds, separated from each other. It reached a critical quantum state, where all atoms constructively interfered into one giant super-atom, which exists in multiple locations at once. It is one particle that is in superposition. One cannot separate or measure an individual cloud, because it is connected to the others into one particle!

This superposition always makes me think of higher spatial dimensions, and what the toratopes look like, when cut down to 3D. Take the triger ((II)(II)(II)), for example: It shows up as eight spheres at the vertices of a cube. There are multiple locations where this shape exists, in our 3D plane. All spheres seem to be separate things, but all are joined into one object, through higher spatial dimensions. It's a strong feeling to me, in fact, that these several clouds we see appearing suddenly is a giant atom, and is what atoms actually look like on the small scale. It's important not to get ahead of ourselves, but if all tiny atom waves are overlapping into one, then we could be seeing a macroscopic closeup of an actual atom itself.

[ICN5D]

A cool little pic showing what is going on. People love pictures!

[PatrickPowers]

I studied superfluids a lot, and concluded that the popular literature on the topic isn't the best. There are all sorts of things they say that aren't quite true. I believe it is always the case that some of the particles have their own wave function and are not part of the superfluid. There is no such thing as a 100% pure superfluid, and many are in a quite mixed state.

Another is "superfluids have no viscosity." Well, some exotic ones are expected to, like superfluids of kaons.

Recently two guys from Princeton suggested that the dark matter is partially superfluid. This would explain some anomalies. The article was well received.

The math is difficult, it is not all that popular of an area, and superfluids samples are tiny, so I suspect there are many "emergent phenomena" in superfluids that have yet to emerge and be noticed. But who knows?

[PatrickPowers]

Scientists made a Bose-Einstein condensate out of hydrogen atoms. You read that right: not molecules, atoms.

This was done by using a Stern-Gerlach procedure to get hydrogen atoms all with the same spin. Such atoms cannot combine to become hydrogen molecules. The atoms were cooled to make the condensate.