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Physics World

Radioactive atoms are tamed by lasers

S. L. Rolston

Published Sep 1, 1994• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

It May seem unlikely that there can be a link between the disparate fields of highenergy and nuclear physics, where energies of 1012 eV are possible, and atomic physics, which can involve energies as low as 10–9 eV. However, by using laser-cooling techniques to decelerate, cool and confine rare radioactive atoms, groups of atomic and nuclear physicists have succeeded in making just such a connection in experiments at Stony Brook in New York and Berkeley in California.

DOI
10.1088/2058-7058/7/9/24

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It May seem unlikely that there can be a link between the disparate fields of highenergy and nuclear physics, where energies of 1012 eV are possible, and atomic physics, which can involve energies as low as 10–9 eV. However, by using laser-cooling techniques to decelerate, cool and confine rare radioactive atoms, groups of atomic and nuclear physicists have succeeded in making just such a connection in experiments at Stony Brook in New York and Berkeley in California.
There has been dramatic progress recently in atomic physics. It is now routine at hundreds of laboratories worldwide to cool samples of atoms to microkelvin temperatures through a process called laser cooling. Bizarre as it may sound, it is possible to use lasers (which are usually associated with cutting and heating) to slow atoms from the jumbo-jet speed of a room temperature gas to a snail's pace. At these low temperatures exciting new physics is observed, and atoms are treated as waves. An overview of the physics principles that underlie this technique is given, as well as a few examples of recent progress in the emergent fields of atom optics and manipulation of coherent matter waves.
For years atomic and nuclear physicists have dreamed of doing experiments with dense, trapped gases of cold, neutral, radioactive atoms. With such samples they could perform precision spectroscopy of radioactive atoms, search for electric dipole moments (indicative of time-reversalsymmetry violation), study parity violation and electroweak effects in atomic transitions and β decay, and more. As reported in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters, such experiments took a step (or perhaps three) closer to reality when groups at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the University of Colorado demonstrated the feasibility of quickly and efficiently transporting and capturing large numbers of atoms from a vapor or an atomic beam.
We have recently succeeded in decelerating and confining millions of antiprotons, 50 times more efficiently than conventional methods, in an electromagnetic trap. These antiprotons were cooled by preloaded electron plasma to an energy below an electronvolt. They were then extracted out of the magnetic field of 2.5 T and transported typically at 250 eV along a beamline, designed for efficient transport at 10–1000 eV. This unique beam from our apparatus named MUSASHI opens up a new field of atomic and nuclear physics probed by ultra‐slow antiprotons.In this paper, the whole experimental setup and procedure will be overviewed: deceleration, capture, cooling and extraction of antiprotons will be discussed in detail, including technical description of diagnostic devices.
The capability of manipulating neutral atoms with the force of resonant scattered laser light is being exploited in several different areas of research. The author discusses applications in particle and nuclear physics by expediting some measurements of the subtle effects of the fundamental weak interaction in atoms and nuclei. It was shown in two recent experiments that it is possible to efficiently cool accelerator produced short-lived isotopes and load them into magneto-optic traps. These demonstrations open up new possibilities for obtaining the required precision in experiments involving rare radioactive isotopes.