Darmstadt 2008 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 63: Quantengase (Wechselwirkungseffekte II / Spinorgase)
Q 63.1: Talk
Friday, March 14, 2008, 14:00–14:15, 3G/H
Metastable neon atoms in optical dipole traps: collisional properties of different internal states — •W.J. van Drunen1, E.-M. Kriener1, J. Schütz1, N. Herschbach1, W. Ertmer2, and G. Birkl1 — 1Institut für Angewandte Physik, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Schlossgartenstr. 7, 64289 Darmstadt — 2Institut für Quantenoptik, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Welfengarten 1, 30167 Hannover
After performing a detailed analysis of the collisional properties of metastable neon atoms (3P2, m=+2) in a magnetic trap [1], we implemented an optical trap for metastable neon for further investigations. This enables us to explore possibilities to manipulate interactions and extend our studies of interactions to states, which are not magnetically trappable.
As a result, we could demonstrate the first trapping of metastable neon (3P0) atoms. Measurements of the number decay of trapped atoms allows us to determine the rate coefficient for two-body loss of neon in the 3P0 metastable state for both bosonic isotopes 20Ne and 22Ne. In addition to the requirements of our previous quantitative studies [1], a careful characterization of the optical trap is required as well.
[1] P. Spoden et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 223201 (2005)