Published: April 03, 2006
JILA physicists are collaborating to explore the link between superconductivity and Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of fermions at ultracold temperatures. Fermions have an odd number of total protons, neutrons, and electrons, giving them a half integer spin, which is either up or down. At ultracold temperatures, this means fermions can't just occupy the same energy level (like bosons, which have an even number of atomic constituents) and form one superatom in a BEC. Instead, they stack up in the lowest energy states, with two fermions in each state, one spin up and one spin down, forming a Fermi sea.
Read More