Self-sustained oscillations in a Large Magneto-Optical Trap

Abstract

We have observed self-sustained radial oscillations in a large magneto-optical trap (MOT), containing up to $10^{10}$ Rb${}^{85}$ atoms. This instability is due to the competition between the confining force of the MOT and the repulsive interaction associated with multiple scattering of light inside the cold atomic cloud. A simple analytical model allows us to formulate a criterion for the instability threshold, in fair agreement with our observations. This criterion shows that large numbers of trapped atoms $N>10^9$ are required to observe this unstable behavior.

submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett. 4 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Using Absorption Imaging to Study Ion Dynamics in an Ultracold Neutral Plasma
• Kinetic modelling and molecular dynamics simulation of ultracold neutral plasmas including ionic correlations
• Deterministic instabilities in the magneto-optical trap

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