Düsseldorf 2007 – scientific programme

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A: Fachverband Atomphysik

A 21: Innovative Traps and Cooling Schemes (jointly with Q)

A 21.5: Talk

Thursday, March 22, 2007, 15:00–15:15, 5D

Laser Cooling of Barium — •Subhadeep De, Umakanth Dammalapati, Klaus Jungmann, and Lorenz Willmann — 1KVI, University of Groningen, 9747 AA Groningen, The Netherlands

Heavy alkaline earth elements like radium offer unique possibilities to test fundamental symmetries in nature. This has triggered the interest in laser cooling and trapping of such isotopes. We have developed strategies for laser cooling with barium, which exhibits a very similar level scheme. These isotopes suffer from large losses from the strong 1S0-1P1 cooling transition to metastable D-states. The branching ratio to the 1D2, 3D2, 3D1-states is 330:1 for barium and similar for radium. We have performed the first laser spectroscopy of the 1D2, 3D2, 3D1 to 1P1 repumping transitions in barium. With the repumpers (1108nm, 1130nm, 1500nm) we were able to demonstate the first laser cooling of barium, where we reduced the loss to the metastable state to less than 1 in 10000. This allow to slow an atom by more than 100m/s. In addition, we are investigating other schemes for repumping in barium. We plan to apply these results to laser cooling of radium.