News From the Field

A glowing object actually attracts atoms


December 8, 2017

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You might think that a hot object pushes atoms and molecules away due to radiation pressure. But a University of California, Berkeley, team showed that for a polarizable atom, the opposite occurs: the hot object attracts it. Using an atom interferometer, they found the attraction was 20 times stronger than the gravitational attraction between a tungsten object and a cesium atom.Full Story

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University of California, Berkeley

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