Hamburg 2009 – scientific programme

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A: Fachverband Atomphysik

A 36: Ultra-Cold Atoms, Ions and BEC V (with Q)

A 36.5: Talk

Friday, March 6, 2009, 12:00–12:15, VMP 6 HS-C

Cooling and Trapping of metastable Magnesium — •Matthias Riedmann, Jan Friebe, André Pape, Temmo Wübbena, Ernst M. Rasel, and Wolfgang Ertmer — Institut für Quantenoptik, Leibniz Universität Hannover, 30167 Hannover

Magnesium is one of the few elements suitable for a neutral atom optical lattice clock. The magic wavelength is predicted between 430 and 470 nm and magnesium offers interesting features like low sensitivity to room temperature blackbody radiation, one of the main uncertainty contributions of state-of-the-art lattice clocks. Up to now, cooling of Mg atoms within the singlet system is limited to the mK regime.

We report on first results with a magneto-optical trap based on transitions in the triplet system. On this transition, the cooling is not limited by the Doppler theory and we expect to reach temperatures in the *K range which are necessary for efficient loading of optical dipole traps. We also use this MOT as an efficient, state-selective detector of atoms in a frequency-sensitive Ramsey-Borde interferometer.