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Has anyone been able to take a monoatomic gas (ex: Helium) and put it in a state where the individual atoms are moving at extremely low velocity (low "translational" temperature) but the atoms themselves have a very high angular momentum (high "rotational" temperature)?

Does this state of a matter have a name? Has anyone studied it/does it have any interesting properties worth exploring?

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  • $\begingroup$ Atoms don't have rotational transitions because they have a very low moment of inertia and that makes the rotational states very widely spaced. See this answer for the details. $\endgroup$
    – John Rennie
    Jul 23, 2021 at 19:13
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    $\begingroup$ For monoatomic gases, this seems impossible because of their almost spherical shape. For molecular gases with an asymmetric shape, it looks better because some rotation can be initiated during the collisions. $\endgroup$
    – HolgerFiedler
    Jul 25, 2021 at 5:34
  • $\begingroup$ In order for the gas to have bulk properties which are measurable the molecules will have to interact with something external and possibly also with each other. When that happens it is likely that this special state will be destroyed. $\endgroup$
    – sammy gerbil
    Apr 21, 2022 at 6:32

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Helium-3 is a monoatomic gas with a magnetic moment. This can be exploited to set the helium-3 atoms in rotation with the help of an external rotating magnetic field.

I would still be interested to know what you need this rotation for.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for this answer! Re: “what you would need…” This was just a thought experiment for having some fun. I’d be curious how such a gas would behave and if it did anything weird $\endgroup$
    – Sidharth Ghoshal
    Aug 15, 2023 at 7:07

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