Eric Allin Cornell and Carl Wieman developed the trapped-gas experiment that produced a dilute rubidium Bose-Einstein condensate in 1995. After optical preparation, evaporation reduced the sample's temperature enough for a macroscopically populated low-energy component to appear.
Measuring the distribution after release revealed a sharply concentrated component together with a broader thermal cloud. Its emergence across the transition supplied an observational test of quantum degeneracy rather than merely a claim that the gas had become very cold.[ref]
Observation of Bose-Einstein Condensation in a Dilute Atomic Vapor by M. H. Anderson and others. Abstract and density-distribution measurements near the condensation threshold
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Portrait of Eric Allin Cornell
. Betsythedevine; 2 June 2015; existing Commons crop by Wabbuh. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source. Articles by others on the same topic
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Eric Allin Cornell is an American physicist known for his groundbreaking work in the field of atomic physics. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001, which he shared with Wolfgang Ketterle and Carl E. Wieman for their achievements in creating Bose-Einstein condensates, a state of matter that occurs at extremely low temperatures. Cornell is a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and has made significant contributions to the understanding of quantum phenomena.