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arXiv:physics/0506220 · Physical Review A

Nondestructive study of nonequilibrium states of cold trapped atoms

Maria Brzozowska, Tomasz Brzozowski, Jerzy Zachorowski, Wojciech Gawlik

Published Dec 1, 2005• 21 citations
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Abstract

Highly sensitive, nondestructive, real-time spectroscopic determination of the two-dimensional kinetic momentum distribution of a cold-atom sample is performed with the three-beam measurement of the recoil-induced resonances. The measurements performed with an operating magneto-optical trap reveal slow velocity drifts within a stationary atomic cloud and strong anisotropy and asymmetry of the non-Maxwellian momentum distribution. The developed method can be easily extended to three dimensions.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.72.061401

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Highly sensitive, nondestructive, real-time spectroscopic determination of the two-dimensional kinetic momentum distribution of a cold-atom sample is performed with the three-beam measurement of the recoil-induced resonances. The measurements performed with an operating magneto-optical trap reveal slow velocity drifts within a stationary atomic cloud and strong anisotropy and asymmetry of the non-Maxwellian momentum distribution. The developed method can be easily extended to three dimensions.
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We report on a compact and transportable apparatus that consists of a cold atomic target at the center of a high resolution recoil ion momentum spectrometer. Cold rubidium atoms serve as a target which can be operated in three different modes: in continuous mode, consisting of a cold atom beam generated by a two-dimensional magneto-optical trap, in normal mode in which the atoms from the beam are trapped in a three-dimensional magneto-optical trap (3D MOT), and in high density mode in which the 3D MOT is operated in dark spontaneous optical trap configuration. The targets are characterized using photoionization.
We describe our use of recoil-induced resonances or stimulated optical Compton scattering to measure the velocity distribution of laser-cooled cesium atoms in one dimension. The technique works well at velocities near 1 cm/s, is insensitive to the effects of light shifts or stray fields, requires only a few mm3{\mathrm{mm}}^{3}mm3 of work space, and may be completed in 1 ms. It may be extended to allow the measurement of velocity distributions in three dimensions and for in situ measurements in optical molasses, traps, or lattices. Our measurements are compared with traditional ballistic measurements in the same apparatus.
We have used a cold ( T<<1 mK), laser-cooled target of Na atoms confined in a magneto-optical trap to study electron capture processes during highly charged ion-sodium atom collisions at keV energies. Momentum distributions of target ions were determined by employing time-of-flight and position sensitive detection of the Na ions, produced during the collisions and extracted by a weak electric field. In this way impact parameter sensitive information about multielectron capture processes is obtained.
A differential two-photon spectroscopic technique for measurement of atomic temperatures in a working magneto-optical trap was demonstrated. We performed experimental and theoretical studies of two-photon resonances on Rydberg transitions 2S1/2−2P3/2−58S in cold Li7 atoms by using counter- and co-propagating laser beams. By analyzing the spectral shapes, a dependence of Rabi broadening and Doppler broadening on total intensity of cooling laser beams was obtained. We measured the temperature of Li7 atoms in the range from 0.25 to 0.75 mK. Our theoretical and experimental results are in reasonably good agreement. The developed approach for temperature measurements can be applied to cold atoms in different traps, including confined hydrogen and antihydrogen atoms.