PX284 - N3 - bose-einstein condensation
- the above equation has no solutions for , where for
- this is because at low temperatures, all the bosons want to be in the ground state
- it can be shown that the fraction of particles in the ground state:
- below , a macroscopic number of particles occupy the same quantum state
- this new state is called a bose-einstein condensate (BEC)
- by analogy with liquid/gas phase change, but BEC doesn't require interparticle interactions
- BEC observed in ultracold atoms