• Free to Read

Nobel Lecture: Bose-Einstein condensation in a dilute gas, the first 70 years and some recent experiments

E. A. Cornell and C. E. Wieman
Rev. Mod. Phys. 74, 875 – Published 19 August 2002
PDFExport Citation

Abstract

Bose-Einstein condensation, or BEC, has a long and rich history dating from the early 1920s. In this article we will trace briefly over this history and some of the developments in physics that made possible our successful pursuit of BEC in a gas. We will then discuss what was involved in this quest. In this discussion we will go beyond the usual technical description to try and address certain questions that we now hear frequently, but are not covered in our past research papers. These are questions along the lines of: How did you get the idea and decide to pursue it? Did you know it was going to work? How long did it take you and why? We will review some our favorites from among the experiments we have carried out with BEC. There will then be a brief encore on why we are optimistic that BEC can be created with nearly any species of magnetically trappable atom. Throughout this article we will try to explain what makes BEC in a dilute gas so interesting, unique, and experimentally challenging.1

    DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.74.875

    ©2002 American Physical Society

    Authors & Affiliations

    E. A. Cornell and C. E. Wieman

    • JILA, University of Colorado and National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0440

    References

    Click to Expand
    Issue

    Vol. 74, Iss. 3 — July - September 2002

    Reuse & Permissions
    Author publication services for translation and copyediting assistance advertisement

    Authorization Required


    ×
    ×

    Images

    ×

    Sign up to receive regular email alerts from Reviews of Modern Physics

    Log In

    Cancel
    ×

    Search


    Article Lookup

    Paste a citation or DOI

    Enter a citation
    ×