A Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) is a state of matter of a dilute gas of bosons cooled to

temperatures very close to absolute zero (that is, very near 0 K or −273.15 °C). Under such
conditions, a large fraction of bosons occupy the lowest quantum state, at which point macroscopic
quantum phenomena become apparent.

This state was first predicted, generally, in 1924–25 by Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein.

Velocity-distribution data (3 views) for a gas of rubidium atoms, confirming the discovery of a new
phase of matter, the Bose–Einstein condensate. Left: just before the appearance of a Bose–
Einstein condensate. Center: just after the appearance of the condensate. Right: after further
evaporation, leaving a sample of nearly pure condensate.

A fermionic condensate is a superfluid phase formed by fermionic particles at low temperatures. It

is closely related to the Bose–Einstein condensate, a superfluid phase formed by bosonic atoms
under similar conditions. Unlike the Bose–Einstein condensates, fermionic condensates are formed
using fermions instead of bosons. The earliest recognized fermionic condensate described the state
of electrons in a superconductor; the physics of other examples including recent work with fermionic
atoms is analogous. The first atomic fermionic condensate was created by a team led by Deborah S.
Jin in 2003. A chiral condensate is an example of a fermionic condensate that appears in theories of
massless fermions with chiral symmetry breaking.
.Most second graders can recite the properties of ordinary solids, liquids, and gases. Solids resist
deformation. They're stiff and they can crumble. Liquids flow, they're hard to compress, and they
assume the shape of their container. Gases are less dense, they're easy to compress, and they not
only assume the shape of their container ... they expand to completely fill it.

The fourth form of matter, the plasma, is gas-like, made of atoms that have been ripped apart into
ions and electrons. The sun is made of plasma, as is most of the matter in the universe. Plasmas are
usually very hot, and you can keep them in magnetic bottles.

The fifth form, the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), discovered in 1995, appears when scientists
refrigerate particles called bosons to very low temperatures. Cold bosons merge to form a single
super-particle that's more like a wave than an ordinary speck of matter. BECs are fragile, and light
travels very slowly through them. (Read Science@NASA's A New Form of Matter: I to learn more
about BECs.)

Now we have fermionic condensates--so new that most of their basic properties are unknown.
Certainly they're cold. Jin created the substance by cooling a cloud of 500,000 potassium-40 atoms
to less than a millionth of a degree above absolute zero. And they probably flow without viscosity.
Beyond that...? Researchers are still learning.

"When you find a new form of matter," notes Jin, "it takes a while to understand it."

Fermionic condensates are related to BECs. Both are made of atoms that coalesce at low
temperatures to form a single object. In a BEC, the atoms are bosons. In a fermionic condensate the
atoms are fermions.

What's the difference?

Bosons are sociable; they like to get together. As a

rule of thumb, any atom with an even number of
electrons + protons + neutrons is a boson. So, e.g.,
ordinary sodium atoms are bosons, and they can
merge to become Bose-Einstein condensates.

Left: Bosons are social; fermions are antisocial.

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Fermions, on the other hand, are antisocial. They

are forbidden (by the "Pauli Exclusion Principle" of
quantum mechanics) to gather together in the same quantum state. Any atom with an odd number of
electrons + protons + neutrons, like potassium-40, is a fermion.

Jin's group found a way around the antisocial behavior of fermions. They used a carefully applied
magnetic field to act like a fine-tunable "Cupid." The field causes loner atoms to pair up, and the
strength of that pairing can be controlled by adjusting the magnetic field. Weakly paired potassium
atoms retain some of their fermionic character, but they also behave a bit like bosons. A pair of
fermions can merge with another pair--and another and another--eventually forming a fermionic
condensate.

Jin suspects that the subtle pairing of atoms in a fermionic condensate is the same pairing
phenomenon seen in liquefied helium-3, a superfluid. Superfluids flow without viscosity, so fermionic
condensates should do the same.