Cross-dressing Rubidium May Reveal Clues For Exotic Computing

In their experiment, they cause a gas of rubidium-87 to form an ultracold state of matter known as a Bose-Einstein condensate. Then, laser light from two opposite directions bathes or “dresses” the rubidium atoms in the gas. The laser light interacts with the atoms, shifting their energy levels in a peculiar momentum-dependent manner. One nifty consequence of this is that the atoms now react to a magnetic field gradient in a way mathematically identical to the reaction of charged particles like electrons to a uniform magnetic field. “We can make our neutral atoms have the same equations of motion as charged particles do in a magnetic field,” says Spielman.

Cross-Dressing? Someone has broken into the liquor cabinet again.