arXiv:cond-mat/0507288 · Physical Review A
Sodium Bose-Einstein condensates in an optical lattice
K. Xu, Yingmei Liu, J. R. Abo-Shaeer, Takashi Mukaiyama, J. K. Chin, Daniel E. Miller, Wolfgang Ketterle, K. M. Jones, Eite Tiesinga
Abstract
The phase transition from a superfluid to a Mott insulator has been observed in a $^{23}\mathrm{Na}$ Bose-Einstein condensate. A dye laser detuned $\ensuremath{\approx}5\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{nm}$ red of the Na $3^{2}S\ensuremath{\rightarrow}3^{2}P_{1∕2}$ transition was used to form the three-dimensional optical lattice. The heating effects of the small detuning as well as the three-body decay processes constrained the time scale of the experiment. Certain lattice detunings were found to induce a large loss of atoms. These loss features were shown to be due to photoassociation of atoms to vibrational levels in the ${\mathrm{Na}}_{2}\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}(1)^{3}\ensuremath{\Sigma}_{g}^{+}$ state.