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American Journal of Physics

A magnetic suspension system for atoms and bar magnets

Charles A. Sackett, Eric Cornell, Christopher R. Monroe, Carl Wieman

Published Apr 1, 1993• 19 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A three dimensional magnetic confinement system is presented which will trap both macroscopic and atomic magnetic dipoles. The dipole is confined by dc and oscillating magnetic fields, and its motion is described by the Mathieu equation. Most aspects of the dynamics of the trapped objects depend only on the ratio of the magnetic moment to the mass of the dipole. Similar motion was observed for masses varying over 21 orders of magnitude (from 1 atom to 0.2 g). The trap is constructed from inexpensive permanent magnets and small coils which are driven by 60 Hz line current. The design of the trap as well as the behavior of the trapped particle are discussed herein.

DOI
10.1119/1.17261

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A three dimensional magnetic confinement system is presented which will trap both macroscopic and atomic magnetic dipoles. The dipole is confined by dc and oscillating magnetic fields, and its motion is described by the Mathieu equation. Most aspects of the dynamics of the trapped objects depend only on the ratio of the magnetic moment to the mass of the dipole. Similar motion was observed for masses varying over 21 orders of magnitude (from 1 atom to 0.2 g). The trap is constructed from inexpensive permanent magnets and small coils which are driven by 60 Hz line current. The design of the trap as well as the behavior of the trapped particle are discussed herein.
Abstract A novel design for an electromagnetic trap is proposed for confinement of neutral particles having a permanent electric dipole moment. The device uses a combination of a sextupole electric and quadrupole magnetic fields superimposed with a strong constant electric field perfectly aligned along the z-axis. We use the extended dipole model to study the dynamics of particle in this position dependent electromagnetic field. The motion of the centre of mass of the dipole is nonlinearly coupled with its rotation. We find three families of particular solutions for which the orbits are periodic or quasiperiodic. They correspond to the particular cases when the whole energy is accumulated in either translational or rotational degrees of freedom. Stability analysis of chosen particular solutions provides trapping conditions. We present several numerical simulations which illustrate trapping and confinement of an electric dipole in the proposed trap. These simulations were performed for three kinds of polar particles and various fields selections. We hope that the proposed model allows experimental physicists to apply a wide variety of non-destructive methods for manipulation, detection and analysis of trapped particles.
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Magneto-optic and magnetostatic trapping is realized near a surface using current carrying coils wrapped around magnetizable cores, with up to 109{10}^{9}109 cesium atoms. Ramping up the current while maintaining optical dissipation leads to tightly confined atom clouds with an aspect ratio of 1:1000. We study the three-dimensional character of the magnetic potential and characterize the atom number and density as functions of the applied current. The field gradient in the transverse dimension has been varied from <10G/cm<10\mathrm{G}/\mathrm{c}\mathrm{m}<10G/cm to >1kG/cm.>1\mathrm{k}\mathrm{G}/\mathrm{c}\mathrm{m}.>1kG/cm.
We have been studying the use of inhomogeneous magnetic fields for the trapping of neutral atoms via the interaction with their magnetic moments. Apart from gravitational forces (which may turn out to be of great importance in atom traps), only electromagnetic forces are of real interest for trapping neutral atoms, and these forces must necessarily arise from the interaction of multipole moments and inhomogeneous fields. In this paper we restrict ourselves to static traps and magnetic dipoles, even though optical, quasi‐static, and Stark effect traps have been discussed. We present some discussion of the field configurations that might be used, of the motion of ‘‘warm’’ trapped atoms (about 1 K), and of the states of ‘‘cold’’ trapped atoms (about 0.1 μK). The basic scale of the interaction is set by the ratio of the Bohr magneton to the Boltzmann constant, about 1.5 Tesla/Kelvin.
We discuss a candidate solution for the controlled trapping and manipulation of two individual Rydberg atoms by means of a magnetic Ioffe-Pritchard trap that is superimposed by a constant electric field. In such a trap Rydberg atoms experience a permanent electric dipole moment that can be of the order of several hundred debye. The interplay of electric dipolar repulsion and three-dimensional magnetic confinement leads to a well controllable equilibrium configuration with tunable trap frequency and atomic distance. We thoroughly investigate the trapping potentials and analyze the interaction-induced stabilization of two such trapped Rydberg atoms. Possible limitations and collapse scenarios are discussed.