Darmstadt 2008 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 42: Ultrakalte Atome (Manipulation und Detektion / Quantengase)

Q 42.5: Talk

Thursday, March 13, 2008, 15:15–15:30, 1C

A Magnetic Ring Trap for Multiply Connected Quantum Gases and Atom Interferometry — Ryan Olf, Edward Marti, Enrico Vogt, •Anton Öttl, and Dan Stamper-Kurn — Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720

We are currently constructing a novel and improved experimental apparatus to create non-trivial, multiply connected trap geometries for quantum gases and atom interferometry.

For this setup we employ specialized, microfabricated magnetic coils which will generate very smooth and tightly confining trapping fields of torroidal shape. The radius of the magnetic ring trap can be controlled and adjusted over a wide range, from tens of microns to millimeters. We aim to load the ring trap with both rubidium and lithium atoms. This will allow us to explore diverse regimes of matterwave interferometry with fermionic and bosonic atoms of differing interaction strengths and possibly overcome current limitations. A Sagnac-type atom interferometer in a mm-sized ring has the potential to greatly surpass the resolution of existing gyroscopes. However, working with smaller ring radii our goal is to fill the whole ring with degenerate quantum gases and to study the effects of this non-trivial topology on coherence and dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates.

The ongoing status of the experiment will be presented. We describe the performance of our dual-species oven and Zeeman slower design loading the double MOT and present measurements to demonstrate the quality of our magnetic ring trap.