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NASA Pursues Atom Optics to Detect Gravitational Waves
- andrewflnr 14y agoWhy rubidium? If I recall correctly, rubidium was also used in the first Bose-Einstein condensate experiments. Does it have properties that make it especially useful for low-temperature physics?
- amatus 14y agoYes. As I understand it rubidium is used because you can cool it with cheap laser diodes from CD players.
- mturmon 14y agoThis is just a $100K award (http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/stp/niac/niac_2012_phaseIandII_awards.html http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/stp/niac/niac_2012_phaseIand...), highly speculative, in an area (long-baseline interferometry) that has been explored by many groups.