Evaporative cooling of atomic molybdenum
Abstract
Atomic molybenum is buffer-gas loaded, magnetically trapped and evaporatively cooled. 10^10 Mo atoms are buffer-gas loaded into a 7.2 K deep magnetic trap. After the buffer gas is removed, the Mo is observed to undergo elastic collisions and reach an equilibrium temperature, T, of 700 mK. Inelastic two-body loss is also observed with a rate constant of 2 × 10-12 cm^3/s. The trapping fields are then lowered to a depth, E_T, and forced evaporative cooling of the molybdenum gas takes place. The equilibrium η (≡ E_T/T) decreases from 10 at 700 mK to 2 at 100 mK. This decrease in η reflects a large decrease in the ratio of elastic to inelastic collision rates as the atoms are cooled.
- Publication:
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APS Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- May 2003
- Bibcode:
- 2003APS..DMP.C4003H