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Nature 418, 739-740 (15 August 2002) | doi:10.1038/418739a

Condensed matter: Scratching the Bose surface

Subir Sachdev

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There are two distinct types of particles in nature: fermions and bosons. But it seems bosons may assume similar characteristics to fermion systems in the low-temperature regime typical of Bose–Einstein condensation.

Particles known as fermions (such as electrons) obey the Pauli exclusion principle, which decrees that only a single fermion can occupy a particular state, such as an orbital in an atom. But the second family of particles, bosons (such as helium atoms), have no corresponding restrictions on their occupation of states.