According to Phys.org, the researchers created an environment inside of a particles a few degrees above absolute 0. According to Mikhail Lukin, lead physicist on the project, "What we have done is create a special type of medium in which photons interact with each other so strongly that they begin to act as though they have mass, and they bind together to form molecules," showing the effect of the cold. After having this unimaginably cold area the researchers shot a single proton into the cloud and as it passed the other particles its energy was given off. When they tried this with 2 photons they came out of the cloud together as a single particle instead of repelling each other, which is their natural behavior. Lurkin also explains that when the molecules react with each other that they behave much like the light sabers from the well known star wars movies to help imagine the effect of these molecules and photons.
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