Comparison of the Hanbury Brown–Twiss effect for bosons and fermions

T. Jeltes, J. M. McNamara, W. Hogervorst, W. Vassen (), V. Krachmalnicoff, M. Schellekens, A. Perrin, H. Chang, D. Boiron, A. Aspect and C. I. Westbrook ()
Additional contact information
T. Jeltes: Laser Centre Vrije Universiteit
J. M. McNamara: Laser Centre Vrije Universiteit
W. Hogervorst: Laser Centre Vrije Universiteit
W. Vassen: Laser Centre Vrije Universiteit
V. Krachmalnicoff: CNRS, Univ. Paris-sud, Campus Polytechnique RD 128
M. Schellekens: CNRS, Univ. Paris-sud, Campus Polytechnique RD 128
A. Perrin: CNRS, Univ. Paris-sud, Campus Polytechnique RD 128
H. Chang: CNRS, Univ. Paris-sud, Campus Polytechnique RD 128
D. Boiron: CNRS, Univ. Paris-sud, Campus Polytechnique RD 128
A. Aspect: CNRS, Univ. Paris-sud, Campus Polytechnique RD 128
C. I. Westbrook: CNRS, Univ. Paris-sud, Campus Polytechnique RD 128

Nature, 2007, vol. 445, issue 7126, 402-405

Abstract: A tale of two heliums Helium-3 is a fermion, a particle, like protons, electrons and neutrons, obeying statistical rules requiring that not more than one in a set of identical particles may occupy a particular quantum state. Fermions avoid one another (a phenomenon called anti-bunching). Helium-4, though, is a boson. Bosons, like photons, pions and alpha particles, stick together and obey statistical rules that allow any number of identical particles to occupy a quantum state. Evidence for both types of quantum statistical behaviour has been observed separately, but until now no single experiment has compared the two directly. By exploiting the physical similarities of the two heliums, a team from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Laboratoire Charles Fabry in Paris has succeeded in demonstrating bunching and anti-bunching behaviour of atoms in a single experiment. This is a spectacular demonstration of the role of quantum statistical effects, and could also lead to some exotic new areas of physics with cold atoms.

Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature05513 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:445:y:2007:i:7126:d:10.1038_nature05513

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature05513

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().