Is there really a fifth state of matter?
From Ian Carlo Lictawa, BS Applied Physics
There really is a legitimate fifth state of matter called “superfluid.”
The universe as we all know, is composed of solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. A Liquid is viscous, while gas has no viscosity. A solid, on the other hand, has closely packed molecules, while plasma is a charged particle. Physicists however predict that an extremely low temperature, matter achieves an entirely new state that shares no common properties with any of the four.
“When you have very low temperature, particles become so close together that the forces between them are strong enough to counter-act any heat energy. They exhibit a whole new kind of physics,” Dr. Augusto Morales of the College of Science Department of Mathematics and Physics told the Varsitarian.
Atoms of superfluids have the same quantum state or same momentum—if one moves, they all move. This allows superfluids to move without friction through the tiniest of cracks. Superfluids can flow up the sides of a jar, but the viscosity is zero. The behavior of superfluids such as Helium-2, Helium-3 and the more recent Lithium-3, under extremely low temperature can help physicists understand the fundamentals of matter.
In 1924, Albert Einstein and the Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose theorized the existence of superfluids. Einstein expounded on Bose’s ideas about the behavior of light when acting as waves and particles by applying “strange” statistics, describing how light can coalesce into a single entity (now known as a laser) and wondered how it might impact particles with mass.
However, it took 71 years for sophisticated instruments to test the theory of atoms condensing into a new state. Carl Wieman and Eric Cornell won the 2001 Nobel Prize for Physics in 1995 for creating a superfluid by cooling rubidium-87 to a billionth of a degree of absolute zero using a combination of lasers and magnets. Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Wolfgang Ketterle produced a sodium-base superfluid a few months later while, Randall Hulet of Rice University succeeded in demonstrating a lithium-base superfluid.
Primary applications of superfluids are on power transmission and generation, and charge transport. It can also affect the way computers are designed since computers depend on the flow of electric charge.
“Anything that has to do with the movement of charges is an application,” Morales said.
According to Morales, superfluidity as a phenomenon has no direct application except one. Physicists believe that the concept of superfluidity is the key to explaining superconductivity, a phenomena where charged areas move with zero resistance. Superconducting electrons are thought to be the key to the high temperature of the conductors.
“Imagine transporting electrically over large distances without resistance, or power source without a need for an external voltage,” said Morales.
