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Science 20 August 2004:
Vol. 305. no. 5687, pp. 1114 - 1115
DOI: 10.1126/science.1102682
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Perspectives

PHYSICS:
Arrival of the Fermion Superfluid

Tin-Lun Ho

Ever since the discovery of Bose-Einstein condensation in an atomic Bose gas in 1995, physicists have been searching for its analog, the fermion superfluid in atomic Fermi gases. Fermion superfluids are expected to exhibit quantum phenomena on the macroscopic scale, just as Bose-Einstein condensates do. Making use of a process called Feshbach resonance, which allows the interaction between atoms to be increased strongly, several groups have recently reported evidence on fermion superfluids. In his Perspective, Ho highlights the report by Chin et al., who have directly observed a pairing gap, a key property of a fermion superfluid. Their interpretation is strongly supported by the theoretical calculation of Kinnunen et al. Ho argues that the evidence accumulated so far provides an overwhelming case for the realization of fermion superfluids.

The author is in the Department of Physics, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA. E-mail: ho{at}mps.ohio-state.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)