quantum behavior

[Norman Albers]

Why do we have to create a temperature so cold before quantum condensates can be experienced? Obviously that's where the thermal energies die away sufficiently but why are the magnitudes such? In solid superconducting materials (2 or 3 elements) temperatures can be higher but still cryogenic. There you have a captured electron cloud.

[Severian]

It is because quantum condensates form when there is a potential well away from zero field. By that I mean that there is a 'valley' in the potential at some non-zero field configuration with a barrier between it and the usual vacuum state. If the temperature is higher than the height of the barrier, the field will just jump over the barrier as if it isn't there, and there will be no quantum condensate.

[swansont]

Atoms have a much larger mass than electrons, so they need to be moving correspondingly slower, i.e. be colder, to have an appreciable deBroglie wavelength and exhibit collective behavior.