---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 14:10:49 -0400 (EDT) From: AIP listserver <physnews@aip.org> To: physnews-mailing@aip.org Subject: update.559 PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News Number 559 October 3, 2001 by Phillip F. Schewe, Ben Stein, and James Riordon NEW MODEL OF INTERGALACTIC MAGNETIC FIELDS. [SSZ: text deleted] ULTRAVIOLET PROMPTS BACTERIAL TREK. Evidence of the [SSZ: text deleted] BEC ON A CHIP. First it was neutral atoms guided along a wire (Update 416). Then it was a beam of atoms steered over the surface of a microchip (Update 486). Now the latest feat of atom optics, performed by a group at the Max Planck Institute in Munich, is the creation of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of rubidium atoms in a microscopic magnetic trap built into a lithographically patterned chip. Not only was this the fastest-formed BEC (it took only 700 ms to form, faster even than the all-optical BEC method reporter earlier this year see Update 545) but the condensate can be maneuvered around the microchip a few microns above the surface (see Update 516); in fact the condensate was moved a distance of 1.6 mm. This capability opens up the possibility of numerous atomtronic applications in interferometry, quantum computing, navigation, lithography, holography, and entanglement experiments. (Hansel et al., Nature, 4 October 2001.)