46 research outputs found
A magnetic lens for cold atoms controlled by a rf field
We report on a new type of magnetic lens that focuses atomic clouds using a
static inhomogeneous magnetic field in combination with a radio-frequency
field. The experimental study is performed with a cloud of cold cesium atoms.
The rf field adiabatically deforms the magnetic potential of a coil and
therefore changes its focusing properties. The focal length can be tuned
precisely by changing the rf frequency value. Depending on the rf antenna
position relative to the DC magnetic profile, the focal length of the atomic
lens can be either decreased or increased by the rf field
All-Optical Production of Chromium Bose-Einstein Condensates
We report on the production of ^52Cr Bose Einstein Condensates (BEC) with an
all-optical method. We first load 5.10^6 metastable chromium atoms in a 1D
far-off-resonance optical trap (FORT) from a Magneto Optical Trap (MOT), by
combining the use of Radio Frequency (RF) frequency sweeps and depumping
towards the ^5S_2 state. The atoms are then pumped to the absolute ground
state, and transferred into a crossed FORT in which they are evaporated. The
fast loading of the 1D FORT (35 ms 1/e time), and the use of relatively fast
evaporative ramps allow us to obtain in 20 s about 15000 atoms in an almost
pure condensate.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Accumulation and thermalization of cold atoms in a finite-depth magnetic trap
We experimentally and theoretically study the continuous accumulation of cold
atoms from a magneto-optical trap (MOT) into a finite depth trap, consisting in
a magnetic quadrupole trap dressed by a radiofrequency (RF) field. Chromium
atoms (52 isotope) in a MOT are continuously optically pumped by the MOT lasers
to metastable dark states. In presence of a RF field, the temperature of the
metastable atoms that remain magnetically trapped can be as low as 25 microK,
with a density of 10^17 atoms.m-3, resulting in an increase of the phase-space
density, still limited to 7.10^-6 by inelastic collisions. To investigate the
thermalization issues in the truncated trap, we measure the free evaporation
rate in the RF-truncated magnetic trap, and deduce the average elastic cross
section for atoms in the 5D4 metastable states, equal to 7.0 10^-16m2.Comment: 9 pages, 10 Figure
Radio-frequency induced ground state degeneracy in a Chromium Bose-Einstein condensate
We study the effect of strong radio-frequency (rf) fields on a chromium
Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), in a regime where the rf frequency is much
larger than the Larmor frequency. We use the modification of the Land\'{e}
factor by the rf field to bring all Zeeman states to degeneracy, despite the
presence of a static magnetic field of up to 100 mG. This is demonstrated by
analyzing the trajectories of the atoms under the influence of dressed magnetic
potentials in the strong field regime. We investigate the problem of
adiabaticity of the rf dressing process, and relate it to how close the dressed
states are to degeneracy. Finally, we measure the lifetime of the rf dressed
BECs, and identify a new rf-assisted two-body loss process induced by
dipole-dipole interactions.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Control of dipolar relaxation in external fields
We study dipolar relaxation in both ultra-cold thermal and Bose-condensed
chromium atom gases. We show three different ways to control dipolar
relaxation, making use of either a static magnetic field, an oscillatory
magnetic field, or an optical lattice to reduce the dimensionality of the gas
from 3D to 2D. Although dipolar relaxation generally increases as a function of
a static magnetic field intensity, we find a range of non-zero magnetic field
intensities where dipolar relaxation is strongly reduced. We use this resonant
reduction to accurately determine the S=6 scattering length of chromium atoms:
. We compare this new measurement to another new
determination of , which we perform by analysing the precise spectroscopy
of a Feshbach resonance in d-wave collisions, yielding . These two measurements provide by far the most precise determination of
to date. We then show that, although dipolar interactions are long-range
interactions, dipolar relaxation only involves the incoming partial wave
for large enough magnetic field intensities, which has interesting consequences
on the stability of dipolar Fermi gases. We then study ultra-cold chromium
gases in a 1D optical lattice resulting in a collection of independent 2D
gases. We show that dipolar relaxation is modified when the atoms collide in
reduced dimensionality at low magnetic field intensities, and that the
corresponding dipolar relaxation rate parameter is reduced by a factor up to 7
compared to the 3D case. Finally, we study dipolar relaxation in presence of
radio-frequency (rf) oscillating magnetic fields, and we show that both the
output channel energy and the transition amplitude can be controlled by means
of rf frequency and Rabi frequency.Comment: 25 pages, 17 figure
Averaging out magnetic forces with fast rf-sweeps in an optical trap for metastable chromium atoms
We introduce a novel type of time-averaged trap, in which the internal state
of the atoms is rapidly modulated to modify magnetic trapping potentials. In
our experiment, fast radiofrequency (rf) linear sweeps flip the spin of atoms
at a fast rate, which averages out magnetic forces. We use this procedure to
optimize the accumulation of metastable chomium atoms into an optical dipole
trap from a magneto-optical trap. The potential experienced by the metastable
atoms is identical to the bare optical dipole potential, so that this procedure
allows for trapping all magnetic sublevels, hence increasing by up to 80
percent the final number of accumulated atoms.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Realization of an Excited, Strongly-Correlated Quantum Gas Phase
Ultracold atomic physics offers myriad possibilities to study strongly
correlated many-body systems in lower dimensions. Typically, only ground state
phases are accessible. Using a tunable quantum gas of bosonic cesium atoms, we
realize and control in one dimensional geometry a highly excited quantum phase
that is stabilized in the presence of attractive interactions by maintaining
and strengthening quantum correlations across a confinement-induced resonance.
We diagnose the crossover from repulsive to attractive interactions in terms of
the stiffness and the energy of the system. Our results open up the
experimental study of metastable excited many-body phases with strong
correlations and their dynamical properties
Accumulation of chromium metastable atoms into an Optical Trap
We report the fast accumulation of a large number of metastable 52Cr atoms in
a mixed trap, formed by the superposition of a strongly confining optical trap
and a quadrupolar magnetic trap. The steady state is reached after about 400
ms, providing a cloud of more than one million metastable atoms at a
temperature of about 100 microK, with a peak density of 10^{18} atoms.m^{-3}.
We have optimized the loading procedure, and measured the light shift of the
5D4 state by analyzing how the trapped atoms respond to a parametric
excitation. We compare this result to a theoretical evaluation based on the
available spectroscopic data for chromium atoms.Comment: 7 pages, 5 Figure
1D Bose Gases in an Optical Lattice
We report on the study of the momentum distribution of a one-dimensional Bose
gas in an optical lattice. From the momentum distribution we extract the
condensed fraction of the gas and thereby measure the depletion of the
condensate and compare it with a theorical estimate. We have measured the
coherence length of the gas for systems with average occupation and
per lattice site.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Quantum and Classical Dynamics of a BEC in a Large-Period Optical Lattice
We experimentally investigate diffraction of a Rb-87 Bose-Einstein condensate
from a 1D optical lattice. We use a range of lattice periods and timescales,
including those beyond the Raman-Nath limit. We compare the results to quantum
mechanical and classical simulations, with quantitative and qualitative
agreement, respectively. The classical simulation predicts that the envelope of
the time-evolving diffraction pattern is shaped by caustics: singularities in
the phase space density of classical trajectories. This behavior becomes
increasingly clear as the lattice period grows.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure