Publications (2)0 Total impact
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ABSTRACT: We demonstrate a 1-D velocity selection technique which relies on combining magnetic and optical potentials. We have selected atom clouds with temperatures as low as 2.9% of the initial temperature, with an efficiency of 1%. The efficiency (percentage of atoms selected) of the technique can vary as slowly as the square root of the final temperature. In addition to selecting the coldest atoms from a cloud, this technique imparts a sharp cut-off in the velocity distribution. The cold selected atoms are confined in a small well, spatially separated from higher energy atoms. Such a non-thermal distribution may be useful for atom optics experiments, such as studies of atom tunneling.
04/2005;
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ABSTRACT: We discuss a velocity selection technique for obtaining cold atoms, in which all atoms below a certain energy are spatially selected from the surrounding atom cloud. Velocity selection can in some cases be more efficient than other cooling techniques for the preparation of ultracold atom clouds in one dimension. With quantum mechanical and classical simulations and theory we present a scheme using a dipole force barrier to select the coldest atoms from a magnetically trapped atom cloud. The dipole and magnetic potentials create a local minimum which traps the coldest atoms. A unique advantage of this technique is the sharp cut-off in the velocity distribution of the sample of selected atoms. Such a non-thermal distribution should prove useful for a variety of experiments, including proposed studies of atomic tunneling and scattering from quantum potentials. We show that when the rms size of the atom cloud is smaller than the local minimum in which the selected atoms are trapped, the velocity selection technique can be more efficient in 1-D than some common techniques such as evaporative cooling. For example, one simulation shows nearly 6% of the atoms retained at a temperature 100 times lower than the starting condition. Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures
03/2005;
