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Introduction

2008; Springer Nature; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-1-4020-8763-9_1

1864-5887

The field of many-body quantum physics has a long history of fundamental discoveries, many of which have gone far beyond our wildest imagination. These include the study of novel states of matter, the observation of previously unseen phase transitions, and the discovery of new macroscopic quantum effects which arise when the intriguing rules of quantum mechanics are no longer restricted to the subatomic world, but rather determine the collective behavior of systems that are observable with the naked eye. In the past, it has often been proven difficult to obtain the underlying theory that yields an accurate description of the collective quantum phenomenon on the microscopic level. A good example is the discovery of superfluidity in liquid 4He by Pyotr Kapitsa, John Allen and Don Misener in 1938 [1, 2], where superfluidity refers to the fact that the liquid can flow without experiencing resistance, which leads for example to the spectacular fountain effect [3]. Since the atoms interact very strongly, the precise internal state of liquid helium is notoriously difficult to determine.