We report observation of Bose-Einstein condensation of a trapped, dilute gas
of atomic hydrogen. The condensate and normal gas are studied by two-photon
spectroscopy of the 1S-2S transition. Interactions among the atoms produce a
shift of the resonance frequency proportional to density. The condensate is
clearly distinguished by its large frequency shift. The peak condensate density
is 4.8 +/- 1.1 \times 10^{15} cm^{-3}, corresponding to a condensate population
of 10^9 atoms. The BEC transition occurs at about T=50 uK and n=1.8 \times
10^{14} cm^{-3}.Comment: Accepted for publication in PRL; 9 pages, 4 PostScript figures,
ReVTeX. Updated discussion of degeneracy effect
We have confined over 5xl0 12 atoms of hydrogen in a static magnetic trap. The atoms are loaded into the trap by precooling with a dilution refrigerator. At operating densities near lx 10 13 cm -3 the gas is observed to be electron and nuclear polarized in the uppermost hyperfine state. The long lifetime of the trapped gas (over 20 min) suggests that it is thermally decoupled from the wall and has evaporatively cooled to a temperature of about 40 mK. The residual decay of the gas density is consistent with spin relaxation induced by dipolar interactions between atoms.
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