Feb 27 2015
Strongly correlated electronic systems, like superconductors, display remarkable electronic and magnetic properties, and are of considerable research interest. These systems are fermionic, meaning they are composed of a class of particle called a fermion.
Bosonic systems, composed another family of particles called bosons, offer a level of control often not possible in solid state systems. Creating analogous states in bose gases is an excellent way to model the dynamics of these less tractable systems. This means engineering a gas that, when cooled down to a condensate, assumes a phase equivalent to its solid state counterpart.
JQI theorists Juraj Radic, Stefan Natu, and Victor Galitski have proposed a new magnetic phase for a bose gas. The transition to this phase is analogous to the formation of ferromagnetism in magnetic materials, like iron, and might give insight into the physics of strongly-correlated electronic systems...Read more about this research in an interactive feature story.
Source: http://jqi.umd.edu/