Since there are so many physics guys up right now.......

[wacki]

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The final bit is done with laser traps, I think.

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No, laser cooling comes first. Atoms absorb light and slow down due to doppler effect of the light and the specificity of the atoms absorption spectrum. The atoms are excited but moving slowly. The atoms then give off a photon and there is recoil so the atoms move in a different direction. They bounce around in laser cooling. The magnetic trap comes second and the higher energy atoms are slowly bled off. What happens next is a new and strange type of matter forms. It is this material I am interested in.

Also, the laser cooling doesn't work unless if the material is a gas. Getting cesium to be a gas at room temperature isn't easy, so how do you do it at the uber cold temperatures?

The cooling process is pretty basic and I understand it completely. It's just the sodium gas and the new and strange form of matter that I don't get.

[wacki]

bumping for JASucker

since he is up right now.

[[censored]]

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Please explain this to me.

I recently attended a seminar on laser cooling/fountain clocks.

Question #1) How do you get sodium or cesium (which are both solids at room temperature) to be a gas at 1 nano Kelvin.

Question #2) Bose-Einstein condensation, what is this super atom? Did all of the nuclei become one? I did some googling, but couldn't find a clear answer.

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Jigga-wha?

[Orpheus]

I think the simplest answer is to remember that many or most solids have a vapor pressure, albeit a very low one.