1,403 research outputs found
Creating Non-Maxwellian Velocity Distributions in Ultracold Plasmas
We present techniques to perturb, measure and model the ion velocity
distribution in an ultracold neutral plasma produced by photoionization of
strontium atoms. By optical pumping with circularly polarized light we promote
ions with certain velocities to a different spin ground state, and probe the
resulting perturbed velocity distribution through laser-induced fluorescence
spectroscopy. We discuss various approaches to extract the velocity
distribution from our measured spectra, and assess their quality through
comparisons with molecular dynamic simulationsComment: 13 pages, 8 figure
Velocity Relaxation in a Strongly Coupled Plasma
Collisional relaxation of Coulomb systems is studied in the strongly coupled
regime. We use an optical pump-probe approach to manipulate and monitor the
dynamics of ions in an ultracold neutral plasma, which allows direct
measurement of relaxation rates in a regime where common Landau-Spitzer theory
breaks down. Numerical simulations confirm the experimental results and display
non-Markovian dynamics at early times.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
Bose-Einstein Condensation of Sr Through Sympathetic Cooling with Sr
We report Bose-Einstein condensation of Sr, which has a small,
negative s-wave scattering length (\,). We overcome the poor
evaporative cooling characteristics of this isotope by sympathetic cooling with
Sr atoms. Sr is effective in this role in spite of the fact that
it is a fermion because of the large ground state degeneracy arising from a
nuclear spin of , which reduces the impact of Pauli blocking of
collisions. We observe a limited number of atoms in the condensate
() that is consistent with the value of and the
optical dipole trap parameters.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Degenerate Fermi Gas of Sr
We report quantum degeneracy in a gas of ultra-cold fermionic Sr
atoms. By evaporatively cooling a mixture of spin states in an optical dipole
trap for 10.5\,s, we obtain samples well into the degenerate regime with
. The main signature of degeneracy is a change in the
momentum distribution as measured by time-of-flight imaging, and we also
observe a decrease in evaporation efficiency below .Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Ultracold Neutral Plasmas
Ultracold neutral plasmas are formed by photoionizing laser-cooled atoms near
the ionization threshold. Through the application of atomic physics techniques
and diagnostics, these experiments stretch the boundaries of traditional
neutral plasma physics. The electron temperature in these plasmas ranges from
1-1000 K and the ion temperature is around 1 K. The density can approach
cm. Fundamental interest stems from the possibility of
creating strongly-coupled plasmas, but recombination, collective modes, and
thermalization in these systems have also been studied. Optical absorption
images of a strontium plasma, using the Sr
transition at 422 nm, depict the density profile of the plasma, and probe
kinetics on a 50 ns time-scale. The Doppler-broadened ion absorption spectrum
measures the ion velocity distribution, which gives an accurate measure of the
ion dynamics in the first microsecond after photoionization.Comment: 12th International Congress on Plasma Physics, 25-29 October 2004,
Nice (France
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Runaway evaporation for optically dressed atoms
Forced evaporative cooling in a far-off-resonance optical dipole trap is
proved to be an efficient method to produce fermionic- or bosonic-degenerated
gases. However in most of the experiences, the reduction of the potential
height occurs with a diminution of the collision elastic rate. Taking advantage
of a long-living excited state, like in two-electron atoms, I propose a new
scheme, based on an optical knife, where the forced evaporation can be driven
independently of the trap confinement. In this context, the runaway regime
might be achieved leading to a substantial improvement of the cooling
efficiency. The comparison with the different methods for forced evaporation is
discussed in the presence or not of three-body recombination losses
Plasma Oscillations and Expansion of an Ultracold Neutral Plasma
We report the observation of plasma oscillations in an ultracold neutral
plasma. With this collective mode we probe the electron density distribution
and study the expansion of the plasma as a function of time. For classical
plasma conditions, i.e. weak Coulomb coupling, the expansion is dominated by
the pressure of the electron gas and is described by a hydrodynamic model.
Discrepancies between the model and observations at low temperature and high
density may be due to strong coupling of the electrons.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Accepted Phys. Rev. Let
Theory of excitation of Rydberg polarons in an atomic quantum gas
We present a quantum many-body description of the excitation spectrum of
Rydberg polarons in a Bose gas. The many-body Hamiltonian is solved with
functional determinant theory, and we extend this technique to describe Rydberg
polarons of finite mass. Mean-field and classical descriptions of the spectrum
are derived as approximations of the many-body theory. The various approaches
are applied to experimental observations of polarons created by excitation of
Rydberg atoms in a strontium Bose-Einstein condensate.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with
arXiv:1706.0371
Creation of Rydberg Polarons in a Bose Gas
We report spectroscopic observation of Rydberg polarons in an atomic Bose
gas. Polarons are created by excitation of Rydberg atoms as impurities in a
strontium Bose-Einstein condensate. They are distinguished from previously
studied polarons by macroscopic occupation of bound molecular states that arise
from scattering of the weakly bound Rydberg electron from ground-state atoms.
The absence of a -wave resonance in the low-energy electron-atom scattering
in Sr introduces a universal behavior in the Rydberg spectral lineshape and in
scaling of the spectral width (narrowing) with the Rydberg principal quantum
number, . Spectral features are described with a functional determinant
approach (FDA) that solves an extended Fr\"{o}hlich Hamiltonian for a mobile
impurity in a Bose gas. Excited states of polyatomic Rydberg molecules
(trimers, tetrameters, and pentamers) are experimentally resolved and
accurately reproduced with FDA.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
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