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Limit on suppression of ionization in metastable neon traps due to long-range anisotropy

M. R. Doery·E. J. D. Vredenbregt·S. S. Op de Beek·H. C. W. Beijerinck·B. J. Verhaar
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Abstract

This paper investigates the possibility of suppressing the ionization rate in a magnetostatic trap of metastable neon atoms by spin-polarizing the atoms. Suppression of the ionization is critical for the possibility of reaching Bose-Einstein condensation with such atoms. We estimate the relevant long-range interactions for the system, consisting of electric quadrupole-quadrupole and dipole-induced dipole terms, and develop short-range potentials based on the Na_2 singlet and triplet potentials. The auto-ionization widths of the system are also calculated. With these ingredients we calculate the ionization rate for spin-polarized and for spin-isotropic samples, caused by anisotropy of the long-range interactions. We find that spin-polarization may allow for four orders of magnitude suppression of the ionization rate for Ne. The results depend sensitively on a precise knowledge of the interaction potentials, however, pointing out the need for experimental input. The same model gives a suppression ratio close to unity for metastable xenon in accordance with experimental results, due to a much increased anisotropy in this case.

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M. R. Doery, E. J. D. Vredenbregt, S. S. Op de Beek, H. C. W. Beijerinck, B. J. Verhaar. 1998-06-12. Limit on suppression of ionization in metastable neon traps due to long-range anisotropy. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.58.3673

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