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International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Automation and High Performance Computing (AIAHPC)

Online Optimization of Cold Atom Experiment Parameters Based on Artificial Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms

Q. P. Wang, Changwen Liang, Xiaoxiao Ma, Lingxiao Zhu

Published Sep 19, 2025• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Cold atom experiments involve a large number of parameters, and there are even different degrees of coupling between these parameters. To achieve the optimal cooling effect, the optimization of experimental parameters is an indispensable step in the atomic cooling process. An online optimization scheme for atomic cooling experimental parameters based on artificial neural networks and genetic algorithms is proposed in this paper. First, the experimental setup and principle scheme used in the experiment are introduced, with emphasis on elaborating in detail on the laser system, cooling sequence, optimization steps, and algorithm flow. Then, the influence of different network structures on prediction performance is analyzed. Finally, the optimization scheme is verified on an actual atomic cooling experimental setup. Experimental results show that the optimization algorithm can accurately predict the optimal parameters of the experimental setup. Compared with manual optimization, the proposed scheme achieves a more significant cooling effect, with the temperature improved by approximately a factor of two in both horizontal and vertical directions.

DOI
10.1109/aiahpc66801.2025.11290541

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Abstract The generation of cold atom clouds is a complex process which involves the optimization of noisy data in high dimensional parameter spaces. Optimization can be challenging both in and especially outside of the lab due to lack of time, expertise, or access for lengthy manual optimization. In recent years, it was demonstrated that machine learning offers a solution since it can optimize high dimensional problems quickly, without knowledge of the experiment itself. In this paper we present results showing the benchmarking of nine different optimization techniques and implementations, alongside their ability to optimize a rubidium (Rb) cold atom experiment. The investigations are performed on a 3D 87Rb molasses with 10 and 18 adjustable parameters, respectively, where the atom number obtained by absorption imaging was chosen as the test problem. We further compare the best performing optimizers under different effective noise conditions by reducing the signal-to-noise ratio of the images via adapting the atomic vapor pressure in the 2D+ magneto-optical trap and the detection laser frequency stability.
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We systematically investigate the dependence of the temperature of cold cesium atoms of polarization gradient cooling (PGC) in optical molasses on experimental parameters, which contain changing modes of cooling laser, PGC interaction time, cooling laser frequency and its intensity. The SR mode of cooling laser, that means the cooling laser frequency is changed with step mode and cooling laser intensity is changed with ramp mode, is found to be the best for PGC comparing with other SS, RS, and RR modes. We introduce a statistical explanation and an exponential decay function to explain the variation of cold atomic temperature on time. The heating effect is observed when the cooling laser intensity is lower than the saturation intensity of cold atoms. After optimization, the lowest temperature of cold cesium atoms is observed to be about 4uK with the number of 2x10^9, a density of 1x10^11/cm^3 and the phase space density of 4.4x10^(-5). The optimization process and analysis of controllable experimental parameters are also meaningful for other cold atomic systems.