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High Temperature Bose-Einstein Condensation Observed
ultracool writes "Two separate research groups claim to have observed Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in quasiparticles at much higher temperatures than atomic BEC — one at 19 Kelvin and the other at room temperature. The 19 K BEC was composed of half-matter, half-light quasi-particles called polaritons, and the room temperature condensate was composed of 'magnons' (packets of magnetic energy). There is some skepticism among physicists as to whether these really are BECs. If they are true BECs, these experiments are the first evidence of them in the solid state." Just in case you need a brush up on BEC, like I did, check out the Wikipedia article on Bose-Einstein condensation.
Seriously, most people might just want to know why they should give a shit that BE condensation has been observed at solid-state. Don't get me wrong, I think there is something fascinating in all this, just wish the summary would have pointed to that aspect instead of regurgitating the so-called claimes of a breakthrough.
It depends on what you find important, remember most physics is a lot less practical than most biology. In my view people are interested in BEC because it is one of the few systems in which lots of quantum particles sit around and interact strongly, and of those, it is probably the most experimentally accessible. As for BEC in solid state quasiparticles, time will tell and I can only speculate from a position of ignorance. On the one hand it might sacrifice what I called "expermantal accessiblilty", because you have to deal with all the muck inside real solids, on the other hand a high temperature condensate made of magnons seems a lot more practical than normal condensates. Maybe it is easy to interface it to electronic control and measurement, so you can create and probe all kinds of weird and wonderful quantum states. Don't be surised if someone comes up with a paper trying to plug this as the next big thing in Quantum Computation.