Destructive temperature: Atoms past absolute zero could also be a brand new type of matter

A cloud of atoms with a temperature past absolute zero – which can be bizarrely hotter than any optimistic temperature conceivable – may very well be a mysterious new quantum state of matter.

Luca Donini on the College of Cambridge and his colleagues have put 1000’s of potassium atoms into this seemingly paradoxical state of affairs by exactly manipulating their power ranges and quantum states. “Quantum mechanics allows you to do this, while classical thermodynamics would never allow it,” he says.

…