China Space Station Cools Rubidium Atoms to 9.7 Picokelvin, Beating Prior Record by 75%
Updated
Updated · Interesting Engineering · Nov 7
China Space Station Cools Rubidium Atoms to 9.7 Picokelvin, Beating Prior Record by 75%
3 articles · Updated · Interesting Engineering · Nov 7
Summary
Researchers aboard China’s space station tracked a cloud of about 20,000 rubidium atoms for seven seconds after release, measuring an equivalent temperature of 9.7 picokelvin with a 7.0-12.9 picokelvin uncertainty range.
Microgravity enabled the result by letting the team weaken an optical laser trap without Earth’s pull distorting the atoms, then watch the Bose-Einstein condensate expand in three dimensions long enough to calculate its energy.
The new mark is about a quarter of the previous 38-picokelvin record from a drop tower, while the ISS Cold Atom Laboratory had reached 52 picokelvin with only one second of free expansion.
That longer orbital observation window could support quantum simulations, larger adjustable-volume traps and atom interferometers designed for precision measurements, including tests of the equivalence principle.