In Review

(Photo: J. Adam Fenster)

STAR CHAMBER: Joe Murphree, a PhD student in physics, examines a vacuum chamber in which he, fellow doctoral student Maitreyi Jayaseelan, and physics professor Nicholas Bigelow can study atoms and their behaviors. The chamber (below) sustains pressures as low as the emptiness of deep outer space. The “box of nothing” allows the researchers to trap atoms and cool them to temperatures close to absolute zero. At such low temperatures, atoms can be analyzed at the quantum level.

(Photo: J. Adam Fenster)