Detecting Bose-Einstein Condensation in Liquid Helium-4

Abstract

Purpose: To search for Bose-Einstein characteristics in liquid helium-4. Background: Theory has predicted that helium will form a Bose-Einstein condensate when cooled to a low temperature, but experimental evidence is fragmentary. There is an ongoing experiment, directed by Prof. J. Woods Halley of the Physics Department, seeking to witness Bose-Einstein characteristics by analyzing the transmission of particles through a disk of liquid helium-4. During 2008 I wrote a LabView program to create the beam of pulses sent at the disk of helium by evaporation of superfluid on the tip of an optical fiber or heater, and record the bolometer response to the transmitted particles.