According to China Science News, recently, one of the main scientific payloads of the Dream Sky Experiment Module of the Chinese Space Station, the Ultra-Cold Atomic Physics Experiment Cabinet (hereinafter referred to as the Ultra-Cold Cabinet, CAPR), successfully completed its first self-inspection and will carry out related platform tasks.
This is China’s first space microgravity ultracold atomic physics experiment platform, but also the world’s second space station ultracold atomic cabinet after the United States.
The supercooled cabinet features the “lowest temperature in the universe”, using laser cooling technology, the supercooled cabinet can cool the atom to pK (10^-12, only one part per billion from absolute zero) level
On this basis, major physical research on superconductivity mechanisms, topological phase transitions, and fundamental standard model tests is being carried out.
Scientists have already obtained cold atomic gases with temperatures on the order of a hundred pK on the ground, and it is expected that the temperature can be one to two orders of magnitude lower (about 10 pK) in the microgravity environment of the space station.
The supercooled cabinet integrates light traps, three-dimensional light lattices, hexagonal light lattices, and other conditions commonly used for ultracold atomic physics experiments, and ground scientists can invoke different modules through the experimental system.
At pK temperature, scientists will conduct a series of scientific experiments to discover new physical phenomena, test fundamental physical laws, and promote the progress of fundamental physics research. (China Science News)
