Hannover 2010 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 2: Ultracold Atoms: Trapping and Cooling (with A)

Q 2.3: Talk

Monday, March 8, 2010, 14:30–14:45, A 320

Laser cooling of a magnetically guided ultra cold atom beam — •Anoush Aghajani-Talesh, Markus Falkenau, Valentin Volchkov, Axel Griesmaier, and Tilman Pfau — Universität Stuttgart, 5. Physikalisches Institut

We report on the transverse laser cooling of a magnetically guided beam of ultra cold chromium atoms. Radial compression by a tapering of the guide is employed to adiabatically heat the beam. Subsequently, heat is extracted from the atom beam by a two-dimensional optical molasses perpendicular to it, resulting in a significant increase of atomic phase space density. A magnetic offset field is applied to prevent optical pumping to untrapped states. Our results demonstrate that by a suitable choice of the magnetic offset field, the cooling beam intensity and detuning, atom losses and longitudinal heating can be avoided. Final temperatures below 65 µK have been achieved, corresponding to an increase of phase space density in the guided beam by more than a factor of 30. We discuss the resulting implications for the loading of a optical dipole trap from the beam [1].

[1] A Aghajani-Talesh, M Falkenau, A Griesmaier, and T Pfau. A proposal for continuous loading of an optical dipole trap with magnetically guided ultra cold atoms. J. Phys. B. 42 245302 (2009).