In 1924, Albert Einstein and Satyendra Nath Bose hypothesized that noninteracting atoms chilled to supercold tempearatures would condense into a new form of matter distinct from solids, liquids, and gases. They predicted that once the atoms reached this supercold state, they would all go into the same quantum state and behave as a single super atom. Much experimental work has since been conducted and continues. Nonlinearity leads to interesting phenomena such as solitons and vortices.
Solitons are waves that move with unchanging form and constant velocity.
Solitons have been observed in nature off the shore of Kauai. Two cloud interference pattern. During the summer of 1999 and the spring of 2000, I worked with Professor Bill Reinhardt and Lincoln Carr , of the University of Washington, on BEC soliton and vortex dynamics. For details of our work, please refer to Publications . Below is a collection of images generated by a computer program that I developed with Bill Reinhardt.