Eur. Phys. J. D 4, 131-137 (1998)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s100530050192

Photo induced collisions with laser cooled He* atoms

The Debye Institute, University of Utrecht, P.O. Box 80.000, 3508 TA Utrecht, The Netherlands

Corresponding author: ^a P.vanderStraten@fys.ruu.nl

Received: 9 February 1998
Revised: 4 May 1998
Accepted: 14 May 1998
Published online: 15 November 1998

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental investigation of cold collisions between metastable helium atoms in an optical trap at 1 mK. Penning (PI) and associative (AI) ionization reactions are distinguished using a mass spectrometer and studied under influence of near resonant laser light. Dramatic enhancement, by more than a factor 15, of the ion rate is observed when the laser is tuned close to resonance. Experimental findings are well-described, on an absolute scale, by model predictions.