1996 Nobel Prize in Physics Holds Special Interest for BNL
Vol. 50 - No. 43 November 1, 1996 BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LABORATORY 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics Holds Special Interest for BNL This year’s Nobel Prize in physics lium-3 because there is a short-range — for the discovery of superfluidity in repulsion between helium-3 atoms a rare form of helium, helium-3 — has that overcomes their longer range at- a special interest for BNL. traction. Two BNL-related theoretical physi- “Since the whole subject was very cists — Victor Emery in the Physics Andrew Sessler much in our minds, it was not long Department and Lawrence Berkeley (left), Lawrence before we decided to explore the possi- National Laboratory’s (LBNL) Andrew Berkeley bilities further,” Emery recalled. Sessler, who is also a Trustee of Asso- National Can Fermions Pair? ciated Universities, Inc. — wrote a Laboratory and paper in 1960 that helped start pio- a Trustee of The two theorists considered neering experiments in the field. And, Associated whether helium-3 atoms could form in 1966, one of the Nobelists, David Universities, pairs in angular momentum states Lee of Cornell University, spent a Inc., and Victor with zero, one, two, etc., units of angu- sabbatical year at BNL, working on Emery of BNL’s lar momentum, which are labeled “s- some of the techniques later used in Physics state,” “p-state,” “d-state,” etc., in the the prize-winning research. Department language of atomic spectroscopy. The prize was won by experimen- stand outside In the simplest generalization of talists David Lee and Robert Richard- Berkner Hall, 36 the BCS theory, they found that the son, also of Cornell, and Douglas years after their optimum pairing was in the d-state Osheroff, Stanford University, for 1960 theoretical and estimated the temperature at their 1972 discovery while at Cornell paper written at which liquid helium makes the transi- that the isotope helium-3 can become Berkeley helped tion into a superfluid at about 0.08 K.
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