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Science 10 April 1998:
Vol. 280. no. 5361, pp. 200 - 201
DOI: 10.1126/science.280.5361.200
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Research News

PHYSICS:
The Subtle Flirtation of Ultracold Atoms

James Glanz

Clouds of atoms cooled to almost absolute zero can form a collective state--in effect, a giant atom--called a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). The stability of a BEC depends almost entirely on how the atoms making it up interact one-on-one, and collisions of ultracold atoms provide a glimpse of these interactions. In a first-ever detection, a group of researchers in Paris has gotten cesium atoms to form ordinary molecules chilled to 300 millionths of a kelvin--something only seen before with atoms--which could be the first step toward studying complex materials in the world of the ultracold.

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