An ultracold, optically trapped mixture of 87Rb and metastable 4He atoms
- Flores, A.S.
- Mishra, H.P.
- Vassen, Wim
- Knoop, S.
Publication date
January 2017
DOI Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC ISSN
1434-6060Abstract
We report on the realization of an ultracold (<25 μK) mixture of rubidium (87Rb) and metastable triplet helium (4He) in an optical dipole trap. Our scheme involves laser cooling in a dual-species magneto-optical trap, simultaneous MW- and RF-induced forced evaporative cooling in a quadrupole magnetic trap, and transfer to a single-beam optical dipole trap. We observe long trapping lifetimes for the doubly spin-stretched spin-state mixture and measure much shorter lifetimes for other spin-state combinations. We discuss prospects for realizing quantum degenerate mixtures of alkali-metal and metastable helium atoms. Graphical abstrac
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