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ULTRACOLD ATOMS

Liquid beyond the van der Waals paradigm

Nature Physics volume 14, pages 211–212 (2018)Cite this article

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An ultracold mixture of Bose gases is eight orders of magnitude more dilute than water. However, quantum fluctuations turn it into a self-bound liquid droplet.

It is common to think of liquids as dense and almost incompressible substances. The term liquid (not to be confused with fluid) seems to be particularly counterintuitive when we speak about dilute atoms close to zero temperature. This phase is thus interesting on its own and its realization would give us access to a range of phenomena — such as surface effects, self-binding, and analogue toy models for nuclei and liquid helium, to name only a few examples — all with the luxury of having a well-controlled perturbative theory to describe them. The experimental observation of liquid droplets in an ultracold atomic gas with essentially zero-range interactions published in Science has a proof-of-principle value and offers avenues for further research1. This experimental work, motivated by a theoretical proposal2, was carried out by Cesar R. Cabrera and colleagues at ICFO in Barcelona, Spain. It has soon been followed by similar findings at LENS in Florence, Italy3.

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Fig. 1: Liquid droplets.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. LPTMS, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Orsay, France

    Dmitry S. Petrov

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  1. Dmitry S. Petrov
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Correspondence to Dmitry S. Petrov.

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Petrov, D.S. Liquid beyond the van der Waals paradigm. Nature Phys 14, 211–212 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-018-0052-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-018-0052-9

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