213 research outputs found
Non-exponential one-body loss in a Bose-Einstein condensate
We have studied the decay of a Bose-Einstein condensate of metastable helium
atoms in an optical dipole trap. In the regime where two- and three-body losses
can be neglected we show that the Bose-Einstein condensate and the thermal
cloud show fundamentally different decay characteristics. The total number of
atoms decays exponentially with time constant tau; however, the thermal cloud
decays exponentially with time constant (4/3)tau and the condensate decays much
faster, and non-exponentially. We show that this behaviour, which should be
present for all BECs in thermal equilibrium with a considerable thermal
fraction, is due to a transfer of atoms from the condensate to the thermal
cloud during its decay.Comment: The intuitive explanation of the atomic transfer effect has been
correcte
Feshbach resonances in 3He*-4He* mixtures
We discuss the stability of homonuclear and heteronuclear mixtures of 3He and
4He atoms in the metastable 2^3S_1 state (He*) and predict positions and widths
of Feshbach resonances by using the Asymptotic Bound-state Model (ABM). All
calculations are performed without fit parameters, using \emph{ab-initio}
calculations of molecular potentials. One promising very broad Feshbach
resonance (\Delta B=72.9^{+18.3}_{-19.3} mT) is found that allows for tuning of
the inter-isotope scattering length.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure
Magnetic-field dependent trap loss of ultracold metastable helium
We have experimentally studied the magnetic-field dependence of the decay of
a Bose-Einstein condensate of metastable 4He atoms confined in an optical
dipole trap, for atoms in the m=+1 and m=-1 magnetic substates, and up to 450
G. Our measurements confirm long-standing calculations of the two-body loss
rate coefficient that show an increase above 50 G. We demonstrate that for m=-1
atoms, decay is due to three-body recombination only, with a three-body loss
rate coefficient of 6.5(0.4)(0.6)10^(-27)cm^6s^(-1), which is interesting in
the context of universal few-body theory. We have also searched for a
recently-predicted d-wave Feshbach resonance, but did not observe it.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure
Heteronuclear ionizing collisions between laser-cooled metastable helium atoms
We have investigated cold ionizing heteronuclear collisions in dilute
mixtures of metastable (2 3S1) 3He and 4He atoms, extending our previous work
on the analogous homonuclear collisions [R. J. W. Stas et al., PRA 73, 032713
(2006)]. A simple theoretical model of such collisions enables us to calculate
the heteronuclear ionization rate coefficient, for our quasi-unpolarized gas,
in the absence of resonant light (T = 1.2 mK): K34(th) = 2.4*10^-10 cm^3/s.
This calculation is supported by a measurement of K34 using magneto-optically
trapped mixtures containing about 1*10^8 atoms of each species, K34(exp) =
2.5(8)*10^-10 cm^3/s. Theory and experiment show good agreement.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure
Bloch oscillations with a metastable helium Bose-Einstein condensate
We have observed Bloch oscillations of a 4He∗ Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice at 1557.3 nm. Due to its low mass, metastable helium was efficiently accelerated orders of magnitude faster than demonstrated with other atoms. In a horizontal lattice, we could transfer a total of 800ℏk of momentum by shuttling the atomic cloud back and forth 50 times between the 4 k and -4 k momentum states with an efficiency of over 99% per Bloch cycle. In a vertical lattice, gravity-induced Bloch oscillations were demonstrated, from which the local gravitational acceleration was derived with a statistical uncertainty of 4×10-5. A clear advantage of He∗ over other atoms is that it can be detected with a microchannel plate detector with near unity efficiency, and this enabled observation of Bloch oscillations up to 12 s even though the number of atoms decreased by three orders of magnitude. These results establish He∗ as a promising candidate for future precision measurements with atom interferometry
Producing and Detecting Correlated atoms
We discuss experiments to produce and detect atom correlations in a
degenerate or nearly degenerate gas of neutral atoms. First we treat the atomic
analog of the celebrated Hanbury Brown Twiss experiment, in which atom
correlations result simply from interference effects without any atom
interactions.We have performed this experiment for both bosons and fermions.
Next we show how atom interactions produce correlated atoms using the atomic
analog of spontaneous four-wavemixing. Finally, we briefly mention experiments
on a one dimensional gas on an atom chip in which correlation effects due to
both interference and interactions have been observed.Comment: to appear in conference proceedings "Atomic Physics 20
Magneto-optical trap for metastable helium at 389 nm
We have constructed a magneto-optical trap (MOT) for metastable triplet
helium atoms utilizing the 2 3S1 -> 3 3P2 line at 389 nm as the trapping and
cooling transition. The far-red-detuned MOT (detuning Delta = -41 MHz)
typically contains few times 10^7 atoms at a relatively high (~10^9 cm^-3)
density, which is a consequence of the large momentum transfer per photon at
389 nm and a small two-body loss rate coefficient (2 * 10^-10 cm^3/s < beta <
1.0 * 10^-9 cm^3/s). The two-body loss rate is more than five times smaller
than in a MOT on the commonly used 2 3S1 -> 2 3P2 line at 1083 nm. Furthermore,
we measure a temperature of 0.46(1) mK, a factor 2.5 lower as compared to the
1083 nm case. Decreasing the detuning to Delta= -9 MHz results in a cloud
temperature as low as 0.25(1) mK, at small number of trapped atoms. The 389 nm
MOT exhibits small losses due to two-photon ionization, which have been
investigated as well.Comment: 11 page
Effect of atomic transfer on the decay of a Bose-Einstein condensate
We present a model describing the decay of a Bose-Einstein condensate, which
assumes the system to remain in thermal equilibrium during the decay. We show
that under this assumption transfer of atoms occurs from the condensate to the
thermal cloud enhancing the condensate decay rate
Cold and trapped metastable noble gases
We review experimental and theoretical work on cold, trapped metastable noble
gases. We em- phasize the aspects which distinguish work with these atoms from
the large body of work on cold, trapped atoms in general. These aspects include
detection techniques and collision processes unique to metastable atoms. We
describe several experiments exploiting these unique features in fields
including atom optics and statistical physics. We also discuss precision
measurements on these atoms including fine structure splittings, isotope
shifts, and atomic lifetimes
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