Continuous Loading of a Conservative Potential Trap from an Atomic Beam

2011

Article

OS Lab

We demonstrate the fast accumulation of 52Cr atoms in a conservative potential from a guided atomic beam. Without laser cooling on a cycling transition, a dissipative step involving optical pumping allows us to load atoms at a rate of 2×10^7  s^−1 in the trap. Within less than 100 ms we reach the collisionally dense regime, from which we produce a Bose-Einstein condensate with subsequent evaporative cooling. This constitutes a new approach to degeneracy where Bose-Einstein condensation can be reached without a closed cycling transition, provided that a slow beam of particles can be produced.

@article{contload11,
  title = {Continuous Loading of a Conservative Potential Trap from an Atomic Beam},
  author = {Falkenau, Markus and Volchkov, Valentin and R{\"u}hrig, Jahn and Griesmaier, Axel and Pfau, Tilman},
  journal = {Physical Review Letters},
  volume = {106},
  pages = {163002},
  publisher = {American Physical Society (APS)},
  month = apr,
  year = {2011},
  doi = {10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.163002},
  month_numeric = {4}
}