An ultracold, optically trapped mixture of 87Rb and metastable 4He atoms

Adonis Silva Flores; Hari Prasad Mishra; Wim Vassen; Steven Knoop

doi:10.1140/epjd/e2017-70675-y

2021 Impact factor 1.611

Atomic, Molecular, Optical and Plasma Physics

Open Access

Eur. Phys. J. D (2017) 71: 49
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2017-70675-y

Regular Article

An ultracold, optically trapped mixture of ⁸⁷Rb and metastable ⁴He atoms

Adonis Silva Flores^a, Hari Prasad Mishra, Wim Vassen and Steven Knoop^b

LaserLaB, Department of Physics and Astronomy, VU University, De Boelelaan 1081, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands

^a e-mail: a.s.flores@vu.nl

Received: 31 October 2016
Received in final form: 27 January 2017
Published online: 2 March 2017

Abstract

We report on the realization of an ultracold (<25 μK) mixture of rubidium (⁸⁷Rb) and metastable triplet helium (⁴He) in an optical dipole trap. Our scheme involves laser cooling in a dual-species magneto-optical trap, simultaneous MW- and RF-induced forced evaporative cooling in a quadrupole magnetic trap, and transfer to a single-beam optical dipole trap. We observe long trapping lifetimes for the doubly spin-stretched spin-state mixture and measure much shorter lifetimes for other spin-state combinations. We discuss prospects for realizing quantum degenerate mixtures of alkali-metal and metastable helium atoms.

Key words: Atomic Physics

Present address: Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), De Bilt, The Netherlands

© The Author(s) 2017. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com

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