Continuous Bose–Einstein condensation

Abstract

Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs) are macroscopic coherent matter waves that have revolutionized quantum science and atomic physics. They are important to quantum simulation1 and sensing2,3, for example, underlying atom interferometers in space4 and ambitious tests of Einstein’s equivalence principle5,6. A long-standing constraint for quantum gas devices has been the need to execute cooling stages time-sequentially, restricting these devices to pulsed operation. Here we demonstrate continuous Bose–Einstein condensation by creating a continuous-wave (CW) condensate of strontium atoms that lasts indefinitely. The coherent matter wave is sustained by amplification through Bose-stimulated gain of atoms from a thermal bath. By steadily replenishing this bath while achieving 1,000 times higher phase-space densities than previous works7,8, we maintain the conditions for condensation. Our experiment is the matter wave analogue of a CW optical laser with fully reflective cavity mirrors. This proof-of-principle demonstration provides a new, hitherto missing piece of atom optics, enabling the construction of continuous coherent-matter-wave devices.

Review on Bose-Einstein Condensation

“…He found paired particles could prevent destroy themselves when they are pulled apart by tidal forces of gravity, which means as illustrated by Fig. 10a, one particle is absorbed by black hole and another is emitted into space in the form of thermal radiation which known as Hawking radiation [26]. analogue of black hole based on a flowing fluid in BEC phase [26].…”

Laser cooling for quantum gases

“…order to coherently maintain a stationary condensate, a solution is to use a Bose-stimulated amplification process [117,118] adding new atoms from a continuous source of near-degenerate gas. Such a system was recently realised [119], relying on the laser-cooling to BEC technique of Fig. 4a).…”

Óptica y fotónica: ciencia y tecnología de la luz

“…En esa ocasión, dos futuros Premios Nobel, William Phillips y Claude Cohen-Tanoudji, discutían con otros participantes los procesos físicos involucrados en el enfriamiento de átomos con láser. Yo estaba terminando entonces mi tesis de doctorado sobre procesos no lineales en vapores atómicos bombeados mediante una transición de dos fotones (Guzmán de García, 1984) y asistía al nacimiento de una nueva área de la física, la cual condujo al descubrimiento de un nuevo estado de la materia, el condensado de Bose-Einstein (Davis et al, 1995) y, más recientemente, a la concreción experimental de la condensación continua de Bose-Einstein o láser de átomos (Chen et al, 2022).…”