Non-destructive study of non-equilibrium states of cold, trapped atoms

Abstract

Highly sensitive, non-destructive, real-time spectroscopic determination of the 2D kinetic momentum distribution of a cold-atom sample is performed with the three-beam measurement of the recoil-induced resonances. The measurements performed with an operating magneto-optical trap reveal slow velocity drifts within a stationary atomic cloud and strong anisotropy and asymmetry of the non-Maxwellian momentum distribution. The developed method can be easily extended to 3D.

arXiv comment4 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PRL

References in corpus (2)

• Loading of a Rb magneto-optic trap from a getter source
• Probe spectroscopy in an operating magneto-optical trap: the role of Raman transitions between discrete and continuum atomic states

Cited by in corpus (4)

• High-order optical nonlinearity at low light levels
• Bound and free atoms diagnosed by the recoil-induced resonances: 1D optical lattice in a working MOT
• Nonvolatile optical memory via recoil-induced resonance in a pure two-level system
• Observation of a non-equilibrium steady state of cold atoms in a moving optical lattice