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Using nonequilibrium thermodynamics to optimize the cooling of a dilute atomic gas

Daniel Mayer, Felix Schmidt, Steve Haupt, Quentin Bouton, Daniel Adam, Tobias Lausch, Eric Lutz, Artur Widera

Published Jan 18, 2019• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Optimizing thermodynamic processes far from equilibrium is a challenge. We report the experimental optimization of cooling and thermalization of a gas of few noninteracting Cesium atoms confined in a nonharmonic optical dipole trap. To this end, we combine degenerate Raman sideband cooling and nonequilibrium thermodynamics. We determine the axial phase-space distribution of the atoms after each Raman cooling pulse by tracing the evolution of the gas with position-resolved fluorescence imaging. We further minimize the entropy production to a target thermal state to specify the optimal spacing between a sequence of pulses, thus achieving optimal thermalization. We finally study the dynamics of the cooling process by measuring the statistical distance between each cooling step. Our results provide a method to systematically optimize the cooling of nonharmonically trapped dilute gases and illustrate the power of nonequilibrium thermodynamics.

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Bulletin of the American Physical Society•May 1, 1993•0 citations
Optimizing thermodynamic processes far from equilibrium is a challenge. We report the experimental optimization of cooling and thermalization of a gas of few noninteracting Cesium atoms confined in a nonharmonic optical dipole trap. To this end, we combine degenerate Raman sideband cooling and nonequilibrium thermodynamics. We determine the axial phase-space distribution of the atoms after each Raman cooling pulse by tracing the evolution of the gas with position-resolved fluorescence imaging. We further minimize the entropy production to a target thermal state to specify the optimal spacing between a sequence of pulses, thus achieving optimal thermalization. We finally study the dynamics of the cooling process by measuring the statistical distance between each cooling step. Our results provide a method to systematically optimize the cooling of nonharmonically trapped dilute gases and illustrate the power of nonequilibrium thermodynamics.
We trap 107{10}^{7}107 cesium atoms in a far red detuned 1D optical lattice. With degenerate Raman sideband cooling we achieve a vibrational ground state population of 80% for the steep trapping direction. Collisional coupling enables us to cool the spin-polarized gas in 3D without loss of atoms to a peak phase space density of 1/1801/1801/180 at a mean temperature of $2.8\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{K}$ and a density of $1.4\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{13}{\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$.
Abstract Thermodynamic inequalities, such as the Clausius inequality, characterize the direction of nonequilibrium processes. However, the latter result presupposes a system coupled to a heat bath that drives it to a thermal state. Far from equilibrium, the Clausius inequality can be generalized using information-theoretic quantities. For initially isolated systems that are moved from an equilibrium state by a dissipative heat exchange, the generalized Clausius inequality is predicted to be reversed. We here experimentally investigate the nonequilibrium thermodynamics of an initially isolated dilute gas of ultracold Cesium atoms that can be either thermalized or pushed out of equilibrium by means of laser cooling techniques. We determine in both cases the phase-space dynamics by tracing the evolution with position-resolved fluorescence imaging, from which we evaluate all relevant thermodynamic quantities. We confirm the validity of the generalized Clausius inequality for the first process and of the reversed generalized Clausius inequality for the second transformation.
The second law of thermodynamics is a fundamental law of Nature. It is almost universally associated with the Clausius inequality that lower bounds a change in entropy by the ratio of supplied heat and temperature. However, this result presupposes that a system is in contact with a heat bath that drives it to a thermal state. For isolated systems that are moved from an initial equilibrium state by a dissipative heat exchange, the Clausius inequality has been predicted to be reversed. We here experimentally investigate the nonequilibrium thermodynamics of an isolated dilute gas of ultracold Cesium atoms that can be either thermalized or pushed out of equilibrium by means of laser cooling techniques. We determine in both cases the phase-space dynamics by tracing the evolution of the gas with position-resolved fluorescence imaging, from which we evaluate all relevant thermodynamic quantities. Our results confirm the validity of the usual Clausius inequality for the first process and of the reversed Clausius inequality for the second transformation.
We clarify the optimal conditions for the protocol of Raman sideband cooling (RSC) of a single atom confined with a tightly focused far-off-resonant optical dipole trap (optical tweezers). The protocol ultimately pursues cooling to a three-dimensional ground state of the confining potential. We show that the RSC protocol has to fulfill a set of critical requirements for the parameters of cooling beams and the excitation geometry to be effective in a most general three-dimensional configuration and for an atom having initial temperature between the recoil and the Doppler bounds. We perform a numerical simulation of the Raman passage for an example of an 85Rb^{85}\mathrm{Rb}85Rb atom taking into account the full level structure and all possible transition channels.
Optical dipole traps can provide strong, state-independent confinement of atoms. Unfortunately, the spatially dependent light shifts of optical transitions in dipole traps can interfere with conventional laser cooling techniques. These limitations may be overcome by cooling trapped atoms with stimulated Raman transitions. In particular, the lights shifts of ground state sublevels can be equal, so that the Raman cooling transition is unperturbed. Cooling in the sideband limit, to the quantum ground state of motion, should be possible. We have confined {sup 85}Rb atoms in a far-detuned optical dipole trap, and indirectly measured extremely low heating rates of the trapped atoms. We have also driven velocity-sensitive stimulated Raman transitions of the trapped atoms. The high resolution of these stimulated Raman resonances should allow us to resolve the motional sidebands and to directly cool the trapped atoms.