Darmstadt 2008 – scientific programme

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A: Fachverband Atomphysik

A 26: Posters: BECs, ultracold gases and plasmas

A 26.13: Poster

Thursday, March 13, 2008, 16:30–18:30, Poster C3

Ultracold bosonic and fermionic atoms in optical lattices — •Lucia Hackermueller, Thorsten Best, Ulrich Schneider, Sebastian Will, Dries van Oosten, and Immanuel Bloch — Johannes-Gutenberg-Universitaet Mainz, Staudingerweg 7, 55099 Mainz, Deutschland

The manipulation of ultracold fermionic and bosonic quantum gases in optical lattices permits access to a wide field of exciting experiments ranging from the investigation and simulation of solid state physics to quantum computing and ultracold chemistry.

In our apparatus we sympathetically cool ⁴⁰K and ⁸⁷Rb atoms. We use one of our lattice beams as a blue plug in a magnetic quadrupole trap. After precooling to 2µK we transfer our atoms to a crossed optical dipole trap and cool both species to quantum degeneracy. Subsequently we load pure potassium samples or potassium / rubidium mixtures into a blue detuned three dimensional optical lattice. The combination of a red detuned dipole trap with a blue detuned optical lattice enables us to vary the external confinement while leaving the lattice potential unchanged.

This setup allows for the investigation of various interesting experiments like heteronuclear molecules, molecular potassium in optical lattices, in situ cloud sizes of spin polarized potassium or spin mixtures. We report on the latest results from the experiment.