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PhysicsCentral: Energetic Degenerates |
 | | A system of identical Fermions is called a “Fermi gas.” If the temperature is low enough, the Fermi gas is “degenerate,” which means the low-lying states are filled up to a well-defined maximum energy, as shown in the diagram. |
 | | Following groundbreaking low-temperature experiments with a gas of Bose atoms, which resulted in a form of matter called a Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC) [See Matters of State], other researchers cooled fermionic atoms, looking for a degenerate Fermi gas, but this proved much more difficult. |
 | | In a degenerate Fermi gas, however, the low-energy states are already filled, so if two atoms collide, there are no lower-energy states available for the atoms to go to after the collision and they must stay in the original ones. |
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