Superstrings in the Lab

Superstring theory is one of the most active areas of modern theoretical physics, but the evidence for it has so far been nonexistent. Even worse, superstring theory itself has been devoid of predictions that might be accessible in a laboratory setting, large or small.

But now four theorists have proposed an experimental setup in which a certain type of superstring might be detected: trapping an ultracold cloud of fermionic atoms along the core of a quantized vortex in a Bose-Einstein condensate. That’s a mouthful–-for more details see this story, and if you really want to read the original paper you can find it here. Bose-Einstein condensates are not that easy to create, let alone study, so it may be awhile before experimentalists can catch up to these theorist’s dreams.