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Fermionic condensate


A fermionic condensate is a superfluid phase formed by fermionic particles at low temperatures. It is closely related to the Bose–Einstein condensate, a superfluid phase formed by bosonic atoms under similar conditions. The earliest recognized fermionic condensate described the state of electrons in a superconductor; the physics of other examples including recent work with fermionic atoms is analogous. The first atomic fermionic condensate was created by a team led by Deborah S. Jin in 2003.

Fermionic condensates are attained at temperatures lower than Bose–Einstein condensates. Fermionic condensates are a type of superfluid. As the name suggests, a superfluid possesses fluid properties similar to those possessed by ordinary liquids and gases, such as the lack of a definite shape and the ability to flow in response to applied forces. However, superfluids possess some properties that do not appear in ordinary matter. For instance, they can flow at low velocities without dissipating any energy—i.e. zero viscosity. At higher velocities, energy is dissipated by the formation of quantized vortices, which act as "holes" in the medium where superfluidity breaks down.

Superfluidity was originally discovered in liquid helium-4, in 1938, by Pyotr Kapitsa, John Allen and Don Misener. Superfluidity in helium-4, which occurs at temperatures below 2.17 kelvins (K), has long been understood to result from Bose condensation, the same mechanism that produces the Bose–Einstein condensates. The primary difference between superfluid helium and a Bose–Einstein condensate is that the former is condensed from a liquid while the latter is condensed from a gas.


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