dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaOptimizing the production of metastable calcium atoms in a magneto-optical trap
| Authors | Jan Gruenert, Andreas Hemmerich |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/0107034 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0107034 |
| DOI | 10.1007/s003400100768 |
Abstract
We investigate the production of long lived metastable (3P2, n=4) calcium atoms in a magneto-optical trap operating on the 1S0 to 1P1 transition at 423 nm. For excited 1P1-atoms a weak decay channel into the triplet states 3P2 and 3P1 exists via the singlet 1D2 (n=3) state. The undesired 3P1-atoms decay back to the ground state within 0.4 ms and can be fully recaptured if the illuminated trap volume is sufficiently large. We obtain a flux of above 10^10 atoms/s into the 3P2-state. We find that our MOT life time of 23 ms is mainly limited by this loss channel and thus the 3P2-production is not hampered by inelasic collisions. If we close the loss channel by repumping the 1D2-atoms with a 671 nm laser back into the MOT cycling transition, a non-exponential 72 ms trap decay is observed indicating the presence of inelastic two-body collisions between 1S0 and 1P1 atoms.
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"abstract": "We investigate the production of long lived metastable (3P2, n=4) calcium\natoms in a magneto-optical trap operating on the 1S0 to 1P1 transition at 423\nnm. For excited 1P1-atoms a weak decay channel into the triplet states 3P2 and\n3P1 exists via the singlet 1D2 (n=3) state. The undesired 3P1-atoms decay back\nto the ground state within 0.4 ms and can be fully recaptured if the\nilluminated trap volume is sufficiently large. We obtain a flux of above 10^10\natoms/s into the 3P2-state. We find that our MOT life time of 23 ms is mainly\nlimited by this loss channel and thus the 3P2-production is not hampered by\ninelasic collisions. If we close the loss channel by repumping the 1D2-atoms\nwith a 671 nm laser back into the MOT cycling transition, a non-exponential 72\nms trap decay is observed indicating the presence of inelastic two-body\ncollisions between 1S0 and 1P1 atoms.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/0107034",
"authors": [
"Jan Gruenert",
"Andreas Hemmerich"
],
"categories": [
"physics.atom-ph"
],
"doi": "10.1007/s003400100768",
"title": "Optimizing the production of metastable calcium atoms in a magneto-optical trap",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0107034"
},
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