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Atomic physics

The social life of atoms

In a trail-blazing experiment 50 years ago, it was observed that photons from far-off stars bunch up. But in fact there's a more general distinction among free, non-interacting particles: bosons bunch, and fermions 'antibunch'.

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Figure 1: Bunch, antibunch.
Figure 2: Noise assessment.

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Lewenstein, M. The social life of atoms. Nature 445, 373–375 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/445372a

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