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

多年来，气相原子的捕获和冷却一直是一个主要的研究领域，主要是激光冷却方法。 虽然激光冷却非常成功，但它仅限于周期表中的一小部分原子。 在最近的一项突破中，开发了一种捕获和冷却的一般两步法。 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所有原子的通用方法的发展将为物理学开辟新的方向。 特别是，类氢原子的捕获和冷却将使未来更精确的光谱学成为可能，这对原子和核物理非常重要。 同样的方法可以应用于冷却反氢原子，从而可以更精确地测试基本对称性。 这项工作将使在未来的精确测量β衰变被困超冷原子氚，相关的中微子质量的问题。 对教育和多样性的更广泛影响是培训和支持两名来自代表性不足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.