Title :
Evaporative cooling of metastable helium atoms
Author :
Tol, P. ; Herschbach, N. ; Hogervorst, W. ; Vassen, W.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Phys. & Astron., Vrije Univ., Amsterdam, Netherlands
Abstract :
Summary form only given. The importance of helium atoms in the metastable state 2/sup 3/S/sub 1/ (He*, lifetime 8000 s) for studies of ultracold atomic clouds in the quantum degeneracy regime has been pointed out. For /sup 4/He* Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) is expected, whereas the /sup 3/He isotope allows the study of a fermionic system, if the technique of sympathetic cooling is feasible. We plan to reach the BEC transition using forced evaporative cooling in our magnetostatic trap (MST) of cloverleaf geometry.
Keywords :
Bose-Einstein condensation; Zeeman effect; cooling; evaporation; helium neutral atoms; metastable states; radiation pressure; Bose-Einstein condensation; Doppler molasses; He; Zeeman slower; cloverleaf geometry; forced evaporative cooling; magneto-optical trap; magnetostatic trap; metastable state atoms; quantum degeneracy regime; ultracold atomic clouds; Atom optics; Atomic beams; Atomic measurements; Clouds; Cooling; Helium; Ionization; Metastasis; Optical pumping; Temperature;
Conference_Titel :
Quantum Electronics Conference, 2000. Conference Digest. 2000 International
Conference_Location :
Nice, France
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-6318-3
DOI :
10.1109/IQEC.2000.907928
