Evaporative cooling in a radio-frequency trap

12 pages, 11 figuresInternational audienceA theoretical investigation for implementing a scheme of forced evaporative cooling in radio-frequency (rf) adiabatic potentials is presented. Supposing the atoms to be trapped by a rf field RF1, the cooling procedure is facilitated using a second rf source RF2. This second rf field produces a controlled coupling between the spin states dressed by RF1. The evaporation is then possible in a pulsed or continuous mode. In the pulsed case, atoms with a given energy are transferred into untrapped dressed states by abruptly switching off the interaction. In the continuous case, it is possible for energetic atoms to adiabatically follow the doubly-dressed states and escape out of the trap. Our results also show that when the frequencies of the fields RF1 and RF2 are separated by at least the Rabi frequency associated with RF1, additional evaporation zones appear which can make this process more efficient