General Methods for Trapping and Cooling of Atoms and their Application to Hydrogen Isotopes

气相中原子的俘获和冷却多年来一直是一个主要的研究领域，以激光冷却方法为主。虽然非常成功，但激光冷却仅限于元素周期表中的一小部分原子。在最近的突破中，开发了一种通用的两步捕集和冷却方法。这些新方法将进一步优化，并应用于在简单的室温装置中捕获和冷却原子氢和氘。捕获和冷却元素周期表中几乎任何原子的一般方法的发展将为物理学开辟新的方向。特别是，氢原子的捕获和冷却将在未来实现更精确的光谱学，这对原子和核物理学非常重要。同样的方法也可以应用于反氢的冷却，从而对基本对称性进行更精确的测试。这项工作将使未来能够精确测量捕获的超冷原子氚的衰变，这与中微子质量问题有关。对教育和多样性的更广泛影响是培训和支持两名来自未被充分代表的少数民族的研究生。

Trapping and cooling of atoms in the gas phase has been a major area of research for many years, dominated by the method of laser cooling. Although very successful, laser cooling has been limited to a small set of atoms in the periodic table. In a recent breakthrough, a general two-step approach to trapping and cooling was developed. These new methods will be further optimized, and applied towards trapping and cooling of atomic hydrogen and deuterium in a simple room temperature apparatus. Development of general methods for trapping and cooling of almost any atom in the periodic table will open new directions in physics. In particular, trapping and cooling of hydrogenic atoms will enable in the future more precise spectroscopy, important for atomic and nuclear physics. The same methods can be applied to cooling of anti-hydrogen, enabling a more precise test of fundamental symmetries. This work will enable in the future precision measurement of beta decay of trapped ultracold atomic tritium, relevant to the question of neutrino mass. The broader impact on education and diversity is training and support of two graduate students from underrepresented minorities.