Eur. Phys. J. D 13, 317-322 (2001)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s100530170247

Intensity and detuning dependence of fine structure changing collisions in a ⁸⁵Rb magneto-optical trap

Instituto de Física de São Carlos, Universidade de São Paulo, Departamento de Física e Ciência dos Materiais, Caixa Postal 369, 13560-970 São Carlos, SP Brazil

Corresponding author: ^a marcassa@if.sc.usp.br

Received: 4 May 2000
Revised: 11 October 2000
Published online: 15 March 2001

Abstract

This paper reports on an experimental investigation of fine structure changing collisions between cold and trapped atoms. Our previous work [Eur. Phys. J. D 7, 317 (1999)] reported on our assessment of the contribution of FSC to the total trap loss using photoionization by a cw laser to detect the atomic fragments in the state originating from these collisions. The Doppler effect plays an important role in the detection scheme and had a limiting effect on our previous experiment. To overcome this problem, we have used a pulsed laser in this work. The signal/noise ratio was improved, allowing us to measure the intensity and frequency dependence of the loss rate due to FSC. A comparison of our results with the semiclassic Gallagher-Pritchard model revealed some disagreements, for which we propose several arguments to attempt to explain these discrepancies. We believe that these results should stimulate theoretical work on this field.