Overview
- Ben Jones of UT Arlington and Joseph Formaggio of MIT outline the concept in Physical Review Letters.
- The scheme uses superradiance in a Bose–Einstein condensate to synchronize radioactive decays and amplify neutrino emission, extending the effect to fermions.
- Calculations show that roughly one million rubidium-83 atoms could compress an ~82–86 day half-life into a burst occurring over minutes.
- The team aims to attempt a tabletop demonstration by vaporizing, trapping, and laser-cooling a radioactive sample into a condensate.
- Creating a radioactive condensate has never been achieved, and experts describe the idea as challenging yet promising for compact, correlated neutrino sources with potential applications such as through-Earth communication and medical isotope production.