A Moving Magnetic Trap Decelerator: a New Source for Cold Atoms and Molecules

We present an experimental realization of a moving magnetic trap decelerator, where paramagnetic particles entrained in a cold supersonic beam are decelerated in a co-moving magnetic trap. Our method allows for an efficient slowing of both paramagnetic atoms and molecules to near stopping velocities...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inarXiv.org
Main Authors Lavert-Ofir, Etay, Gersten, Sasha, Henson, Alon B, Shani, Itamar, Liron, David, Narevicius, Julia, Narevicius, Edvardas
Format Paper Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 23.09.2011
Subjects
Atoms & subatomic particles
Cold atoms
Deceleration
Meteorological satellites
Neon
Physics - Atomic Physics
Physics - Chemical Physics
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Summary:We present an experimental realization of a moving magnetic trap decelerator, where paramagnetic particles entrained in a cold supersonic beam are decelerated in a co-moving magnetic trap. Our method allows for an efficient slowing of both paramagnetic atoms and molecules to near stopping velocities. We show that under realistic conditions we will be able to trap and decelerate a large fraction of the initial supersonic beam. We present our first results on deceleration in a moving magnetic trap by bringing metastable neon atoms to near rest. Our estimated phase space volume occupied by decelerated particles at final velocity of 50 m/s shows an improvement of two orders of magnitude as compared to currently available deceleration techniques.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1011.0418