Magneto-optical trapping of optically pumped metastable europium

Abstract

We demonstrate laser cooling and magneto-optical trapping of europium. The atoms are optically pumped to a metastable state and then loaded from an atomic-beam source via conventional Zeeman slowing and magneto-optical trapping techniques using a $J=13/2\leftrightarrow J=15/2$ quasi-cyclic transition. The trapped populations contained up to $1\times 10^7$ atoms, and a two-body loss rate is estimated as $1\times 10^{-10}\mathrm{c}{\mathrm{m}}^3/s$ from the non-exponential loss of atoms at high densities. We also observed leakage out of the quasi-cyclic transition to the two metastable states with $J=9/2$ and $11/2$, which is adequate to pump the laser-cooled atoms back to the $J=7/2$ ground state.

arXiv comment5 pages, 4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (13)

• Dipolar physics: A review of experiments with magnetic quantum gases
• Highly polar molecules consisting of a copper or silver atom interacting with an alkali-metal or alkaline-earth-metal atom
• Bose-Einstein Condensation of Europium
• Narrow-line magneto-optical trap for europium
• A two-dimensional magneto-optical trap of dysprosium atoms as a compact source for efficient loading of a narrow-line three-dimensional magneto-optical trap
• Magneto-optical trap of a Group III atom
• Magnetically tunable Feshbach resonances in ultracold gases of europium atoms and mixtures of europium and alkali-metal atoms
• An Atomic Beam of Titanium for Ultracold Atom Experiments
• Laser-induced thermal source for cold atoms
• New opportunites for interactions and control with ultracold lanthanides
• Improving the spectroscopic knowledge of neutral Neodymium
• Understanding one-body losses in magnetically trapped metastable europium atoms
• Simulated Laser Cooling and Magneto-Optical Trapping of Group IV Atoms