THE COLDEST SPOT IN THE UNIVERSE: A FACILITY FOR ULTRA-COLD ATOM EXPERIMENTS ABOARD THE SPACE STATION

摘要

Microgravity offers a wealth of opportunities for studies of ultra-cold atomic gases and their applications. These include the ability to achieve exceptionally low temperatures via expansion into very weak traps, which don't need to be supported against gravity, and the ability to achieve very long interaction times with samples that have been released from traps. We are proposing to develop a flexible ultra-cold atom facility that will enable the precise study of quantum gases at temperatures an order of magnitude below the coldest achievable on Earth.