LeBlanc, the Canada Research chairwoman in ultracold gases for quantum simulation, managed to make Bose-Einstein condensate — a state of matter that is so cold, it’s only 40 billionths of a degree above absolute zero (-273.15C).

The researchers had to custom-build a “quantum gas apparatus” that slows atoms down with infrared lasers, magnetic coils and mirrors. They put rubidium atoms in a vacuum. They use rubidium — normally thought of as a solid metal — because the atom, which under hydrogen in the periodic table, is one of the simplest atoms with a single electron. The electron is the part manipulated with the lasers.

“You have laser beams coming in from all different directions that push on our atoms and reduce their speed so they can’t really go anywhere once we’ve trapped them,” LeBlanc said. “That makes them cold because they can’t move and eventually they enter into this very cold quantum state called a Bose-Einstein condensate.”

Few labs in the world and fewer in Canada have managed the feat, and after three years the University of Alberta department of physics in the faculty of science has done it, making it the coldest city on Earth to have the coldest gas in the universe. About 40 to 50 machines have to co-ordinate for the science to work.

“A Bose-Einstein condensate is a collection of atoms that have all decided to group together into one quantum state,” LeBlanc said. “They kind of act like one atom, but there are many of them all together.”

Hints of success started to appear in May, but a leak — a catastrophic pinhole — in the vacuum (about one million-million times less dense than air) set work back until September.

Making the Bose-Einstein condensate is basic research that will serve as a launching point for other discoveries, LeBlanc hopes.

“We would like to study manybody physics, which is when the properties of matter change because you have many particles together instead of just individual particles,” LeBlanc said. “I like to make the analogy that it’s like a community — when people come together, they can do more together when they’re apart.”

FACT FILE

Bose-Einstein condensate — the coldest state of matter with the lowest energy. The other states from least to greatest energy are solid, liquid, gas and plasma. Atoms in this quantum state clump together and act like one atom.

Absolute zero — the temperature (-273.15C) at which atoms stop moving. It is considered physically impossible.

Boson — one of two kinds of particles. The other is fermion. Bosons have an even number of spins, while fermions have an odd number. Bosons like to be together, while fermions like to be apart.