Bilatzailea
A gas is cooled to its lowest temperature in space
A quantum gas has been cooled to a temperature of 50.10 picocelvin, the lowest temperature ever measured in space.
Inside the Chinese space station, in the state of microgravity, several atoms have been cooled with an optical trap and have reached a temperature of 10 picocelvin.
“This value would be very close to absolute zero (−273.15 °C).”
Quantum gases can be obtained by greatly cooling atoms or molecules, among other things, and in gases in this state, the laws of quantum mechanics prevail. One way to cool these gases is to use optical traps, which allow atoms to be held and manipulated without physical contact by means of a focused laser beam.
The high cooling of gases is an old objective of scientists, since it allows, among other things, to deepen quantum simulations and basic physics. By evaporative cooling, the gases were cooled to the temperature of the nanocellvins, obtaining Bose-Einstein condensates and Fermi gases, states of matter that occur at temperatures close to absolute zero.
A study has now used an optical trap inside China’s space station, cooling 20,000 atoms to a temperature of 10 picoelvin, a value that would be very close to absolute zero (−273.15 °C).
The authors believe that this achievement will promote innovative experiments in quantum simulation and high-precision measurements in space.
Buletina
Bidali zure helbide elektronikoa eta jaso asteroko buletina zure sarrera-ontzian
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