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Quantum physics

Equilibrium on hold

Nature volume 440, pages 877–878 (2006)Cite this article

Startlingly, two atomic clouds confined to one dimension can be made to pass through each other repeatedly without ever coming to rest. Such non-equilibrium phenomena are fundamental, but experimentally elusive.

As do the rest of us, nature likes to relax. Through microscopic collisions that result in macroscopic processes such as the diffusion of particles and energy, nature's first instinct is to seek a state of thermodynamic equilibrium, in which all mechanical, chemical and thermal variables reach constant values. In an ultracold atomic gas, for example, a state of equilibrium has generally been reached by the time each atom has collided with just three others.

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Figure 1: Collision confined.

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  1. Institute for Theoretical Physics, Utrecht University, Leuvenlaan 4, Utrecht, 3584 CE, The Netherlands

    Henk T. C. Stoof

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  1. Henk T. C. Stoof
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Stoof, H. Equilibrium on hold. Nature 440, 877–878 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/440877a

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