Laser cooling experiments with Yb, Eu and Rb

H. Arthur Klein, A.S. Bell, G. P. Barwood +1 more

Umakant D. Rapol, A. V. Krishna, A. Wasan +1 more

C. S. Edwards, Patrick Robert Gill, H. Arthur Klein +2 more

Nishizaki Masatoshi, Yuto Muroki, 将 川尻 +4 more

Vasant Natarajan A, Ayan Banerjee, Umakant D. Rapol

We discuss two experiments that can be performed using a cloud of laser-cooled and trapped atoms, namely Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) and search for a permanent Electric Dipole Moment (EDM). BEC can be observed in Rb atoms in a magnetic trap by using forced evaporative cooling to continuously lower the temperature below the condensation limit. The cloud is cooled by preferentially ejecting the hottest atoms from a magnetic trap. The magnetic trap is loaded with laser-cooled atoms from a magneto-optic trap. The EDM experiment can be performed with a laser-cooled cloud of Yb atoms. The atoms are spin polarized and the precession of the spin is measured in the presence of a strong electric field applied perpendicular to the spin direction. The use of laser-cooled atoms should greatly enhance the sensitivity of the experiment.

Frank Münchow, Cristian Bruni, Maximilian Madalinski +1 more

We report on the spectroscopic investigation of vibrational levels in the electronic ground state of the heteronuclear molecule (176)Yb(87)Rb. Using two-photon photoassociation spectroscopy in a laser-cooled mixture of (176)Yb and (87)Rb we are able to determine the binding energies of weakly-bound vibrational levels. By applying the LeRoy-Bernstein method we assign the vibrational quantum numbers and deduce a C(6) coefficient for the long-range part of the molecular potential of ∼2500 a.u.