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Nature 445, 372-375 (25 January 2007) | doi:10.1038/445372a; Published online 24 January 2007
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Canada Excellence Research Chair in Biofuels and Biorefining Innovation
- University of British Columbia
- Vancouver, British Columbia Canada
Research Fellows in Pluripotent Stem Cell Technology
- The University of Nottingham
- Nottingham, UK
Atomic physics: The social life of atoms
Maciej Lewenstein1
Abstract
In a trail-blazing experiment 50 years ago, it was observed that photons from far-off stars bunch up. But in fact there's a more general distinction among free, non-interacting particles: bosons bunch, and fermions 'antibunch'.
Counting individual quantum-mechanical objects such as the particles of a complex many-body system — whether photons, electrons, atoms or something else — is an efficient way to learn about the properties of both the system and of the particles being counted. Fifty years ago, Robert Hanbury Brown and Richard Twiss1 published the results of the paradigmatic experiment of this sort, in which they counted joint detections, in two separate detectors, of photons from distant stars.
- Maciej Lewenstein is at the Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats and the Institut de Ciències Fotòniques, 08869 Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain.
Email: maciej.lewenstein@icfo.es
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