Frankfurt 2006 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Downloads | Help

Q: Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 26: Fallen und Kühlung I

Q 26.2: Talk

Tuesday, March 14, 2006, 14:15–14:30, HII

Depolarization cooling of Chromium atoms — •Marco Fattori, Simone Götz, Axel Griesmaier, Tobias Koch, Jürgen Stuhler, and Tilman Pfau — 5. Physikalisches Institut, Universität Stuttgart, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany

Our group has recently proposed a new cooling scheme based on depolarization of a polarised cloud of trapped atoms [1]. Inelastic dipolar relaxation can in fact couple the internal spin reservoir of the gas to the external kinetic energy reservoir. Continuous cooling of the spin reservoir with optical pumping allows reduction of the temperature of the cloud down to the photon recoil temperature. We discuss advantages and limitations of this new cooling technique and we present preliminary experimental results of such a scheme applied to a gas of chromium atoms.

[1] S. Hensler, A. Greiner, J. Stuhler and T. Pfau, Europhys. Lett. 71, 918 (2005)