Realization of Bose-Einstein condensates in lower dimensions - art. no. 130402

Bose-Einstein condensates of sodium atoms have been prepared in optical and magnetic traps in which the energy-level spacing in one or two dimensions exceeds the interaction energy between atoms, realizing condensates of lowe r dimensionality. The crossover into two-dimensional and one-dimensional co ndensates was observed by a change in aspect ratio and by the release energ y converging to a nonzero value when the number of trapped atoms was reduce d.