Quantum physicists are about to get their own playground in space. NASA’s Cold Atom Laboratory, scheduled to launch to the International Space Station on 20 May, is set to be the coldest place in the known Universe. Researchers will use the lab to probe quantum phenomena that would be impossible to observe on Earth.
The US$83-million mission will be used to study quantum mechanics on the macroscopic scale by making a state of matter known as a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC). These are clouds of hundreds of thousands of atoms that, when chilled to just above absolute zero, behave as waves that synchronize into a single quantum object. “Just being able to do these experiments in space I think is a huge accomplishment,” says Kamal Oudrhiri, mission manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
On Earth, gravitational forces usually disperse these condensates within a few seconds. The closest that BECs have come to being in space-like conditions is during brief stints in a research rocket, or falling from a drop tower over 9 seconds. But, floating on the space station, they should be able to exist for at least 10 seconds. That’s long enough for them to be cooled to record-low temperatures — perhaps as little as 20 trillionths of a degree above absolute zero. That would be the coldest known temperature in the Universe, says Oudrhiri. Colder and long-lasting condensates will “push the frontiers of studying fundamental physics”, says Gretchen Campbell, an atomic physicist at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland. “It’s something people have hoped for for almost 15 years.”
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