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Runaway evaporation for optically dressed atoms

David Wilkowski

Published Aug 16, 2016• 4 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Forced evaporative cooling in a far-off-resonance optical dipole trap is proved to be an efficient method to produce fermionic- or bosonic-degenerated gases. However in most of the experiences, the reduction of the potential height occurs with a diminution of the collision elastic rate. Taking advantage of a long-living excited state, like in two-electron atoms, I propose a new scheme, based on an optical knife, where the forced evaporation can be driven independently of the trap confinement. In this context, the runaway regime might be achieved leading to a substantial improvement of the cooling efficiency. The comparison with the different methods for forced evaporation is discussed in the presence or not of three-body recombination losses.

Related papers

Runaway evaporation for optically dressed atoms

David Wilkowski

Forced evaporative cooling in a far-off-resonance optical dipole trap is proved to be an efficient method to produce fermionic- or bosonic-degenerated gases. However, in most of the experiments, the reduction of the potential height occurs with a diminution of the collision elastic rate. Taking advantage of a long-living excited state, like in two-electron atoms, I propose a new scheme, based on an optical knife, where the forced evaporation can be driven independently of the trap confinement. In this context, the runaway regime might be achieved leading to a substantial improvement of the cooling efficiency. The comparison with the different methods for the forced evaporation is discussed in the presence or absence of three-body recombination losses.

arXiv:1011.4372•Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics•Oct 4, 2010•4 citations

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Jean‐François Clément, Jean-Philippe Brantut, Martin Robert-De-Saint-Vincent +4 more

We demonstrate runaway evaporative cooling directly with a tightly confining optical-dipole trap and achieve fast production of condensates of $1.5\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{5}$ $^{87}\text{R}\text{b}$ atoms. Our scheme uses a misaligned crossed-beam far off-resonance optical-dipole trap (MACRO-FORT). It is characterized by independent control of the trap confinement and depth allowing forced all-optical evaporation in the runaway regime. Although our configuration is particularly well suited to the case of $^{87}\text{R}\text{b}$ atoms in a 1565 nm optical trap, where an efficient initial loading is possible, our scheme is general and will allow all-optical evaporative cooling at constant stiffness for every optically trappable atomic or even molecular species.

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We demonstrate a simple scheme to achieve fast, accelerating (runaway) evaporative cooling of optically trapped atoms by tilting the optical potential with a magnetic field gradient. Runaway evaporation is possible in this trap geometry due to the weak dependence of vibration frequencies on trap depth, which preserves atomic density during the evaporation process. Using this scheme, we show that Bose-Einstein condensation with $\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{5}$ cesium atoms can be realized in $2--4\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{s}$ of forced evaporation. The evaporation speed and energetics are consistent with the three-dimensional evaporation picture, despite the fact that atoms can only leave the trap in the direction of tilt.

arXiv:0804.0060•Physical Review A•Jul 24, 2008•137 citations

Optimized production of large Bose-Einstein condensates

D. Comparat, A. Fioretti, Guillaume Stern +3 more

We describe several routes to quantum degenerate gases based on simple schemes to efficiently load atoms into and evaporate them from a ``dimple'' crossed dipolar trap. The dimple is loaded nonadiabatically by collisions between atoms which are trapped in a reservoir which can be provided either by a dark spontaneous-force magneto-optical trap (MOT), the (aberrated) laser beam itself, or by a quadrupolar or quadratic magnetic trap. Optimal loading parameters for the dimple, relatively high temperature, and tight optical trap are derived from thermodynamic equations including possible inelastic and Majorana losses. Evaporative cooling is described by a set of simple equations, taking into account gravity, the possible occurrence of the hydrodynamical regime, Feshbach resonances, and three body recombination. The solution implies that to have efficient evaporation the elastic collisional rate (in ${\mathrm{s}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$) must be on the order of the trap frequency and lower than 100 times the temperature in microkelvins. Following this approach Bose-Einstein condensates with more than ${10}^{7}$ atoms should be obtained in much less than $1\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{s}$ starting from an ordinary MOT setup.

arXiv:quant-ph/0602010•Physical Review A•Apr 18, 2006•55 citations
Forced evaporative cooling in a far-off-resonance optical dipole trap is proved to be an efficient method to produce fermionic- or bosonic-degenerated gases. However in most of the experiences, the reduction of the potential height occurs with a diminution of the collision elastic rate. Taking advantage of a long-living excited state, like in two-electron atoms, I propose a new scheme, based on an optical knife, where the forced evaporation can be driven independently of the trap confinement. In this context, the runaway regime might be achieved leading to a substantial improvement of the cooling efficiency. The comparison with the different methods for forced evaporation is discussed in the presence or not of three-body recombination losses.
Forced evaporative cooling in a far-off-resonance optical dipole trap is proved to be an efficient method to produce fermionic- or bosonic-degenerated gases. However, in most of the experiments, the reduction of the potential height occurs with a diminution of the collision elastic rate. Taking advantage of a long-living excited state, like in two-electron atoms, I propose a new scheme, based on an optical knife, where the forced evaporation can be driven independently of the trap confinement. In this context, the runaway regime might be achieved leading to a substantial improvement of the cooling efficiency. The comparison with the different methods for the forced evaporation is discussed in the presence or absence of three-body recombination losses.
We demonstrate runaway evaporative cooling directly with a tightly confining optical-dipole trap and achieve fast production of condensates of $1.5\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{5}$ 87Rb^{87}\text{R}\text{b}87Rb atoms. Our scheme uses a misaligned crossed-beam far off-resonance optical-dipole trap (MACRO-FORT). It is characterized by independent control of the trap confinement and depth allowing forced all-optical evaporation in the runaway regime. Although our configuration is particularly well suited to the case of 87Rb^{87}\text{R}\text{b}87Rb atoms in a 1565 nm optical trap, where an efficient initial loading is possible, our scheme is general and will allow all-optical evaporative cooling at constant stiffness for every optically trappable atomic or even molecular species.
We report on parallel production of Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) in steerable, multiplexed crossed optical dipole traps. Using a conventional trap-weakening evaporation scheme, where the optical trapping power is lowered, we obtain an array of up to four independent BECs. To improve evaporation efficiency, we propose to target each crossed trap site with a narrow auxiliary laser beam, creating an escape channel for energetic atoms. We experimentally demonstrate runaway evaporation using this scheme, which is characterized by very modest weakening in atomic confinement such that high densities and elastic collision rates can be maintained. Based on discretely time-shared optical tweezers, our approach is particularly suited for addressing the problem of simultaneously cooling atoms in multiple traps, providing the freedom to act locally and in a tailored fashion at individual trap sites.
We demonstrate a simple scheme to achieve fast, accelerating (runaway) evaporative cooling of optically trapped atoms by tilting the optical potential with a magnetic field gradient. Runaway evaporation is possible in this trap geometry due to the weak dependence of vibration frequencies on trap depth, which preserves atomic density during the evaporation process. Using this scheme, we show that Bose-Einstein condensation with $\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{5}$ cesium atoms can be realized in 2−−4s2--4\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{s}2−−4s of forced evaporation. The evaporation speed and energetics are consistent with the three-dimensional evaporation picture, despite the fact that atoms can only leave the trap in the direction of tilt.
We describe several routes to quantum degenerate gases based on simple schemes to efficiently load atoms into and evaporate them from a ``dimple'' crossed dipolar trap. The dimple is loaded nonadiabatically by collisions between atoms which are trapped in a reservoir which can be provided either by a dark spontaneous-force magneto-optical trap (MOT), the (aberrated) laser beam itself, or by a quadrupolar or quadratic magnetic trap. Optimal loading parameters for the dimple, relatively high temperature, and tight optical trap are derived from thermodynamic equations including possible inelastic and Majorana losses. Evaporative cooling is described by a set of simple equations, taking into account gravity, the possible occurrence of the hydrodynamical regime, Feshbach resonances, and three body recombination. The solution implies that to have efficient evaporation the elastic collisional rate (in ${\mathrm{s}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$) must be on the order of the trap frequency and lower than 100 times the temperature in microkelvins. Following this approach Bose-Einstein condensates with more than 107{10}^{7}107 atoms should be obtained in much less than 1s1\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{s}1s starting from an ordinary MOT setup.