Mixtures of lithium and cesium in a quasi-electrostatic trap

Summary form only given. A quasi-electrostatic trap (QUEST) realized with a CO/sub 2/ laser relies on the electrostatic polarizability of the trapped particles and therefore represents a universal storage device for ultracold particles. All intriguing application of the QUEST is the simultaneous storage of different atomic species. Elastic and inelastic ground-state interactions can be investigated, one species may act as an agent to sympathetically cool the other species, and the formation and storage of cold ground-state molecules becomes possible in the same trapping volume. Our experiments start with a two-species magneto-optical trap for lithium and cesium.