Andrew Kortyna works at the Joint Institute of Laboratory Astrophysics at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado. There, he serves as a research associate. Previously, Andrew Kortyna worked at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, and Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. During his tenure at Colby College, he built and used a laser-based trap to study ultracold atoms.
Atoms can be in one of five states – solid, liquid, gas, plasma, and Bose-Einstein condensate. While the first four states are thoroughly researched, the fifth was observed only in the last decade of the 20th century.
Matter can enter the Bose-Einstein condensate state when atoms reach near absolute zero temperature, at a small fraction of one degree Kelvin. At this point atoms can barely move, having virtually no energy. That results in them bundling together and beginning to act collectively as a single particle.
Scientists use diffuse gas to create Bose-Einstein condensate, often rubidium. They use lasers to cool it down and drain the atoms of most of their energy. Finally, evaporative cooling — similar to how your cup of morning coffee cools off — trap takes away most of the atoms’ remaining kinetic energy.
Andrew Kortyna 