For the First Time, an Ultracold Quantum Gas Generated in Space - with a Laser System from Berlin
As part of a national consortium, the Research Group of Optical Metrology (Prof. Achim Peters, Ph.D and Dr. Markus Krutzik) from the Department of Physics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU) now made a historical step towards testing the Equivalence Principle in the microcosm of quantum objects.
In the MAIUS mission launched at 03:30 Central European Time on January 23, 2017 a cloud of nano-Kelvin cold rubidium atoms has been generated in space on board of a sounding rocket for the first time ever. This cloud was cooled down with laser light and radio frequency electrical fields so that the atoms finally formed a single quantum object, a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC).
More than 20 years after the groundbreaking results of the Nobel laureates Cornell, Ketterle, and Wieman on ultra-cold atoms, preliminary evaluation of the sounding rocket mission data indicates that such experiments can also be carried out under the harsh conditions of space operation – back in 1995, living room-sized setups in a special laboratory environment were required.
More Information
Press release of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german)
Press release of the Ferdinand-Braun-Institut (pdf)
Press release of the Deutsches Zentrums für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)