Efficient rapid production of a Bose-Einstein condensate by overcoming serious three-body loss

Abstract

We report the efficient production of a large Bose-Einstein condensate in ${}^{87}$Rb atoms. This is achieved by quickly reducing the radio-frequency of the magnetic field at a rate of -96.8 kHz/s during the final stage of evaporative cooling, and we have produced a condensate with $(2.2\pm 0.1)\times 10^6$ atoms against a serious three-body recombination loss. We observed the dependence of the cooling efficiency on the rate at which the truncated energy changes by measuring the condensate growth for three kinds of radio-frequency sweep. The experimental results quantitatively agree with calculations based on the quantum kinetic theory of a Bose gas.

5 pages, REVTeX4, 4 eps figures, Phys. Rev. A in press