Phenomenon Discovered In Ultracold Atoms Brings Us a Step Closer To Atomtronics

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday June 9, 2013 @07:10AM from the good-luck-replacing-the-hard-drive dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A new phenomenon discovered in ultracold atoms of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) could offer new insight into the quantum mechanical world and be a step toward applications in 'atomtronics'—the use of ultracold atoms as circuit components. Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have reported the first observation of the 'spin Hall effect' in a cloud of ultracold atoms, acting as a single quantum object and then called BEC, the lowest state of matter, with solid and liquid coming next. As one consequence, the researchers made the atoms, which spin like a child's top, skew to one side or the other, by an amount dependent on the spin direction."

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Works every time by lesincompetent · 2013-06-09 07:15 · Score: 5, Funny

I'm just gonna pretend i'm totally comfortable with the subject matter and i've understood it all perfectly when i'm gonna talk to my friends about the latest and greatest science news.
I'm gonna look oh so smart.
Re: The summary by ceoyoyo · 2013-06-09 07:37 · Score: 5, Informative

What do you mean by "physically spin"? They have angular momentum and behave in a way that is almost always consistent with them physically spinning. The classical description of nuclear spin is as useful as the Newtonian description of motion.
If you want to be pedantic, go all the way. There aren't really atoms, particularly not in a Bose-Einstein condensate, just excitations of particular fields.