Extremely cold drop of helium can be levitated forever

A drop of very cold liquid helium can be made to float for an indefinitely long time using strong magnets and quantum effects

By Karmela Padavic-Callaghan

9 June 2023

A droplet of helium, made to float in a vacuum

Harris Lab, Yale University.

A drop of liquid helium cooled to an extremely low temperature can be made to float in a vacuum for an indefinitely long time. In this state, it could serve as a powerful mini-laboratory for fundamental physics.

At -269°C, liquid helium is already strangely cold for a liquid, but when it is approximately 2 degrees colder it becomes even stranger. At this temperature, quantum effects make its viscosity vanish and turn it into a superfluid. Charles Brown at …

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