Interactions of Low-Energy Ions and Electrons with Bose-Einstein Condensates
Abstract
A significant amount of theoretical work on dilute atomic BEC has focused on how condensates interact with ultra-cold charged impurities. To enable experimental studies, we have constructed a BEC setup embedded in a Faraday cage suitable to compensate stray electric fields at the BEC location to levels below about 0.1 mV/cm. Using RF-induced evaporative cooling and evaporative cooling by surface adsorption we prepare atom clouds down to one microKelvin temperature. Cold ions have been created using two-step photo-ionization of magnetically trapped cold atom clouds. The ions have been extracted using the electric field of a tip close to the atom clouds, and they have been detected using a channel-plate detector. Ion imaging capability has been demonstrated by generating tomographic cuts of small cold atom clouds. Electric-field compensation routines based on Rydberg-atom spectroscopy have been experimentally tested. To date, the electric field has been compensated to about lmV/cm. Work to increase the initial atom number is in progress. An atomic-beam shutter intended to reduce the vacuum pressure in the BEC chamber has been designed and is being tested. The work has lead to several peer-reviewed publications on BECs in optical lattices.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 13, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA563386
Entities
People
- Georg A. Raithel
Organizations
- University of Michigan