Interactions in Dense Atom Traps

该项目的目标是产生激光冷却原子的密集源，并了解这些密集原子的碰撞和辐射特性。 激光冷却的铷原子云将在全息原子阱（HAT）中产生，HAT是通过将高功率连续波YAG激光发送通过全息相位元件，然后将衍射图案成像到暗磁光阱内形成的原子云上而产生的。 多重散射光的影响主要取决于原子的非共振吸收光谱，该光谱预计具有窄的线宽，但具有大的最大值，即使当激光被调谐远离共振时，也会使致密的HAT云在光学上变厚。 将对这种影响进行测量。 HAT中的高密度也将首次允许在原子钟的背景之外系统地研究超冷碰撞频率偏移。

The goals of this project are to produce dense sources of laser-cooled atoms, and to understand the collisional and radiative properties of these dense atoms. The dense atom cloud of laser-cooled rubidium atoms will be generated in a holographic atom trap (HAT), which is produced by sending a high power continuous-wave YAG laser through a holographic phase element, then imagining the diffraction pattern onto a cloud of atoms formed inside a dark magneto-optical trap. The effects of multiply scattered light depend crucially on the off-resonant absorption spectrum of the atoms, which is predicted to have a narrow linewidth, but a large maximum value, making the densest HAT clouds optically thick even when the laser light is tuned far off resonance. Measurements of this effect will be made. The high densities in the HAT will also allow for the first time systematic studies of ultracold collision frequency shifts outside the context of atomic clocks.