Bose-Einstein Condensate

Summary

A Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) is a state of matter of a dilute gas of weakly interacting bosons confined in an external potential and cooled to temperatures very near to absolute zero. Under such conditions, a large fraction of the bosons collapse into the lowest quantum state of the external potential, and all wave functions overlap each other, at which point quantum effects become apparent on a macroscopic scale. The atoms undergo an “identity crisis” at extremely low temperatures. They display wave like properties and eventually start overlapping each other.