Transmission-line decelerators for atoms in high Rydberg states

Abstract

Beams of helium atoms in Rydberg states with principal quantum number $n=52$, and traveling with an initial speed of 1950 m/s, have been accelerated, decelerated and guided while confined in moving electric traps generated above a curved, surface-based electrical transmission line with a segmented center conductor. Experiments have been performed with atoms guided at constant speed, and with accelerations exceeding $10^7$ m/s${}^2$. In each case the manipulated atoms were detected by spatially resolved, pulsed electric field ionization. The effects of tangential and centripetal accelerations on the effective trapping potentials experienced by the atoms in the decelerator have been studied, with the resulting observations highlighting contributions from the density of excited Rydberg atoms to the acceleration, deceleration and guiding efficiencies in the experiments.

11 pages, 10 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Imaging of microwave fields using ultracold atoms
• Trapping molecules on a chip in traveling potential wells
• Static trapping of polar molecules in a traveling wave decelerator
• A Stark decelerator on a chip

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Probing interactions between Rydberg atoms with large electric dipole moments in amplitude modulated electric fields
• Experimental demonstration of a Rydberg-atom beam splitter
• Preparation of circular Rydberg states in helium using the crossed fields method