Large spin relaxation rates in trapped submerged-shell atoms
Name
Connolly-2010-Large spin relaxation rates in trapped submerged-shell atoms.pdf
Size
350.33 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
fe25d9f2b772fbe4353c2bb5556fbc1b
Author(s)
Connolly, Colin B.
Au, Yat Shan
Doret, S. Charles
Ketterle, Wolfgang
Doyle, John M.
Date Issued
January 2010
Journal
Physical Review A
Publisher
American Physical Society
Citation
Connolly, Colin B. et al. “Large spin relaxation rates in trapped submerged-shell atoms.” Physical Review A 81.1 (2010): 010702. © 2010 The American Physical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Spin relaxation due to atom–atom collisions is measured for magnetically trapped erbium and thulium atoms at a temperature near 500 mK. The rate constants for Er–Er and Tm–Tm collisions are 3.0×10[superscript -10] and 1.1×10[superscript -10] cm[superscript 3] s[superscript -1], respectively, 2–3 orders of magnitude larger than those observed for highly magnetic S-state atoms. This is strong evidence for an additional, dominant, spin relaxation mechanism, electronic interaction anisotropy, in collisions between these “submerged-shell,” L≠0 atoms. These large spin relaxation rates imply that evaporative cooling of these atoms in a magnetic trap will be highly inefficient.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.81.010702
