Laser Cooling of Transition Metal Atoms

Abstract

We propose the application of laser cooling to a number of transition-metal atoms, allowing numerous bosonic and fermionic atomic gases to be cooled to ultra-low temperatures. The non-zero electron orbital angular momentum of these atoms implies that strongly atom-state-dependent light-atom interactions occur even for light that is far-detuned from atomic transitions. At the same time, many transition-metal atoms have small magnetic dipole moments in their low-energy states, reducing the rate of dipolar-relaxation collisions. Altogether, these features provide compelling opportunities for future ultracold-atom research. Focusing on the case of atomic titanium, we identify the metastable $a^5{F}_5$ state as supporting a $J\to J+1$ optical transition with properties similar to the D2 transition of alkali atoms, and suited for laser cooling. The high total angular momentum and electron spin of this state suppresses leakage out of the the nearly closed optical transition to a branching ratio estimated below $\sim 10^{-5}$. Following the pattern exemplified by titanium, we identify optical transitions that are suited for laser cooling of elements in the scandium group (Sc, Y, La), the titanium group (Ti, Zr), the vanadium group (V, Nb), the manganese group (Mn, Tc), and the iron group (Fe, Ru).

12 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (9)

• Non-Abelian Anyons and Topological Quantum Computation
• Superconducting proximity effect and Majorana fermions at the surface of a topological insulator
• Bose-Einstein Condensation of Erbium
• Crossover from a molecular Bose-Einstein condensate to a degenerate Fermi gas
• Strong dipolar effects in a quantum ferrofluid
• Anyons and the quantum Hall effect - a pedagogical review
• Discrete symmetries and 1/3-quantum vortices in condensates of F=2 cold atoms
• Fermionic suppression of dipolar relaxation: Observation of universal inelastic dipolar scattering
• Introduction to the physics of artificial gauge fields

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Laser cooling for quantum gases
• Optical Telecommunications-Band Clock based on Neutral Titanium Atoms
• Chiral edge dynamics and quantum Hall physics in synthetic dimensions with an atomic erbium Bose-Einstein condensate
• Fast and High-Yield Loading of a D${}_2$ MOT of Potassium from a Cryogenic Buffer Gas Beam
• Isotope Shifts in the Metastable a${}^5$F and Excited y${}^5$G${}^{\circ }$ Terms of Atomic Titanium
• A Magneto-Optical Trap of Titanium Atoms
• An Atomic Beam of Titanium for Ultracold Atom Experiments
• Radio-frequency evaporation in an optical dipole trap
• Room temperature buffer gas beam of metastable state titanium atoms
• Simulated Laser Cooling and Magneto-Optical Trapping of Group IV Atoms
• Hyperfine spectroscopy and laser cooling of the fermionic isotopes ${}^{47}$Ti and ${}^{49}$Ti
• Sub-Doppler cooling, state preparation, and optical trapping of a triel atom