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arXiv · 1611.00155

Trapping of molecular Oxygen together with Lithium atoms

Nitzan Akerman·Michael Karpov·Yair Segev·Natan Bibelnik·Julia Narevicius·Edvardas Narevicius
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Abstract

We demonstrate simultaneous deceleration and trapping of a cold atomic and molecular mixture. This is the first step towards studies of cold atom-molecule collisions at low temperatures as well as application of sympathetic cooling. Both atoms and molecules are cooled in a supersonic expansion and are loaded into a moving magnetic trap which brings them to rest via the Zeeman interaction from an initial velocity of 375 m/s. We use a beam seeded with molecular Oxygen, and entrain it with Lithium atoms by laser ablation prior to deceleration. The deceleration ends with loading of the mixture into a static quadrupole trap, which is generated by two permanent magnets. We estimate $10^9$ trapped O$_2$ molecules and $10^5$ Li atoms with background pressure limited lifetime on the order of 1 second. With further improvements to Lithium entrainment we expect that sympathetic cooling of molecules is within reach.

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Nitzan Akerman, Michael Karpov, Yair Segev, Natan Bibelnik, Julia Narevicius, Edvardas Narevicius. 2016-11-01. Trapping of molecular Oxygen together with Lithium atoms. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.119.073204

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