A physicist from the University of the Philippines Diliman (UP Diliman) made a remarkable scientific contribution for leading a group of six German researchers in a novel way to uncover a unique type of “dark” matter.
Dr. Jayson Cosme’s team published their findings in the prestigious international journal Physical Review Letters (PRL).
UPD-CS NIP physicist Dr. Jayson Cosme led a team of German researchers in the creation of a dark-state Bose-Einstein condensate. Their groundbreaking work was published in Physical Review Letters. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Jayson Cosme/UP Diliman College of Science)
The Filipino physicist can be compared to the fictional character Sheldon Cooper from the US television show “Big Bang Theory.”
Cooper devoted himself to “string theory”—a theory on the existence of cosmic strings—but made a significant shift in the latter part of the TV series to study about dark matter.
In a statement issued by the UP Diliman College of Science, it explained that scientists are able to use laser beams to slow down the movement of the atoms in a material, causing its temperature to drop.
“When the temperature goes down almost to absolute zero, the individual atoms can condense together into a new state of matter with quantum properties that behaves almost like a single giant atom. Renowned physicists Albert Einstein and Satyendra Nath Bose were the first to predict its existence, hence it was named after them and is now called the Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC),” it said.
BECs can be observed using special cameras, but Cosme’s team used lasers to manipulate and observe them using standard methods.
Cosme said that by shaking BECs the right way, “we can cause them to become quantum objects that don’t absorb, reflect, nor emit light—hence dark.”
Cosme expressed gratitude for being given the opportunity to lead a team of international researchers.
“This has been a very deep cooperation between myself and the group of Prof. Andreas Hemmerich, who studied under Nobel Laureate Theodor W. Haensch; as well as Prof. Ludwig Mathey’s group, which includes my close collaborator, first author Jim Skulte,” he said.
“I’m very honored and thankful to have been the last author on this paper, as my colleagues are all from Germany,” he added.
The research study was also co-authored by Phatthamon Kongkhambut, Sahana Rao, Ludwig Mathey, Hans Keßler, and Andreas Hemmerich. (Sonny Daanoy)