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Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics

Collisional loss rate of sodium atoms in a magneto-optical trap operating on the D1 line

Luís Gustavo Marcassa, Kristian Helmerson, A M Tuboy, D. M. B. P. Milori, Sérgio Ricardo Muniz, J.P. Flemming, Sérgio Carlos Zílio, Vanderlei Salvador Bagnato

Published Jul 28, 1996• 13 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We have measured the total collisional loss rate for ultracold sodium atoms held in a magneto-optical trap operating on the D1 line. The collisional rate is extracted from the decay of the fluorescence from trapped atoms. We observe an intensity dependence corresponding to radiative escape and hyperfine changing collisions in the trap. The results obtained are compared with previous measurements for traps operating on the D2 line.

DOI
10.1088/0953-4075/29/14/017

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Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics•Nov 19, 2002•28 citations
We have measured the total collisional loss rate for ultracold sodium atoms held in a magneto-optical trap operating on the D1 line. The collisional rate is extracted from the decay of the fluorescence from trapped atoms. We observe an intensity dependence corresponding to radiative escape and hyperfine changing collisions in the trap. The results obtained are compared with previous measurements for traps operating on the D2 line.
Losses from a cesium magneto-optical trap induced by fine-structure changing collisions have been measured directly by counting of fluorescence photons emitted at the D1{\mathrm{D}}_{1}D1​ resonance line, with the trap lasers operating on the D2{\mathrm{D}}_{2}D2​ resonance line. The absolute value of the fine-structure loss rate coefficient has been measured and its dependence on the hyperfine state occupation has been explored. These results provide a fundamental test for the theoretical descriptions of excited-state trap losses.
We have measured the collisional loss rate for cold strontium atoms held in a magneto-optical trap as a function of light intensity in the regime of low intensity (2-6 mW/cm²). The results confirm our recently proposed model, where we showed that the sudden increase of loss rate at low intensities does not depend on hyperfine structure changing collision only. The model, which is based on radiative escape mechanism and a light intensity dependent escape velocity, is able to reproduce quite well the behavior of the experimental observations. The data here reported may be of importance for a recent proposed application for cold trapped 88Sr atoms, as well as other trappable alkaline earth metal atoms such as Ca.
We present a detailed analysis of the cold collision measurements performed in a high-gradient magneto-optical trap with a few trapped Cs atoms first presented in Ueberholz et al ( J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 33 (2000) L135 ). The ability to observe individual loss events allows us to identify two-body collisions that lead to the escape of only one of the colliding atoms (up to 10% of all collisional losses). Possible origins of these events are discussed here. We also observed strong modifications of the total loss rate with variations in the repumping laser intensity. This is explained by a simple semiclassical model based on optical suppression of hyperfine-changing collisions between ground-state atoms.