Kinetics of a single trapped ion in an ultracold buffer gas

Abstract

The immersion of a single ion confined by a radiofrequency trap in an ultracold atomic gas extends the concept of buffer gas cooling to a new temperature regime. The steady state energy distribution of the ion is determined by its kinetics in the radiofrequency field rather than the temperature of the buffer gas. Moreover, the finite size of the ultracold gas facilitates the observation of back-action of the ion onto the buffer gas. We numerically investigate the system's properties depending on atom-ion mass ratio, trap geometry, differential cross-section, and non-uniform neutral atom density distribution. Experimental results are well reproduced by our model considering only elastic collisions. We identify excess micromotion to set the typical scale for the ion energy statistics and explore the applicability of the mobility collision cross-section to the ultracold regime.

10 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (12)

• A trapped single ion inside a Bose-Einstein condensate
• Power-Law Distributions for a Trapped Ion Interacting with a Classical Buffer Gas
• Quantum theory of ultracold atom-ion collisions
• Cold heteronuclear atom-ion collisions
• Controlled collisions of a single atom and ion guided by movable trapping potentials
• Universal properties in ultracold ion-atom interactions
• A new method for producing ultracold molecular ions
• Scanning tunnelling microscopy for ultracold atoms
• Bright Source of Cold Ions for Surface-Electrode Traps
• Observation of single collisionally cooled trapped ions in a buffer gas
• Probing ultra-cold Fermi atoms with a single ion
• Manipulation of quantum particles in rapidly oscillating potentials by inducing phase hops

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Controlling chemical reactions of a single particle
• Dynamics of a single trapped ion immersed in a buffer gas
• Ultracold ion-atom experiments: cooling, chemistry, and quantum effects
• Experimental setup for studying an ultracold mixture of trapped Yb${}^{+}$-${}^6$Li
• Simulation of ion behavior in an open three-dimensional Paul trap using a power series method