Trap loss in a two-species Na-Cs magneto-optical trap: Intramultiplet mixing in heteronuclear ultracold collisions

Isotopic difference in the heteronuclear loss rate in a two-species surface trap

“…In the low intensity regime, we see a decrease of ␤ Rb-Cs Ј with increasing intensity [10,12]. In addition, the slope of the curve is found to be smaller for 85 Rb than for 87 Rb, as the hyperfine splitting energy of 85 Rb is smaller and therefore the minimum is reached at lower intensities.…”

“…As with other atom traps, the performance of the trap (e.g., density, number, etc.) is strongly affected by collisionally induced trap loss [10][11][12]. We have therefore used the TSMMOT to investigate the cold collisions of atomic Cs with 87 Rb ͑ 85 Rb͒.…”

“…Losses as large as 78% in the Rb atom number due to Cs were observed. By fitting this data to a transient loading rate equation [10,12], the heteronuclear loss rate was obtained. The dependence of trap loss on the total intensity of the Rb trap laser was measured by keeping all parameters of the Cs trap (intensity, detuning, number of Cs atoms in the trap) constant.…”

Two-species cold atomic beam

“…Cold collisions in mixed-species magneto-optical traps (MOTs) have been studied for a number of alkali gases. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Sympathetic cooling in twospecies magnetic traps has allowed exploration of quantum degeneracy in a number of fermionic species, [9][10][11] as well as studies of mixtures of quantum degenerate fluids. 12,13 In addition, colocating cold atomic samples of two species under nearly identical conditions is desirable for a number of precision measurements, including electric dipole moment searches 14 and tests of local Lorentz invariance 15 and the equivalence principle.…”

High-precision calculations of van der Waals coefficients for heteronuclear alkali-metal dimers

“…There is strong interest in heteronuclear molecules formed by pairs of different alkali metal atoms. Experiments have been carried out on trap loss in mixtures of Na with K [7,8], Rb [9,10], and Cs [11] and on optical collisions [12] in a Na-Cs mixture and on molecular formation [13]. The mixtures of magnetically-trapped alkali metal atoms Na-Cs and Na-K have been proposed [14] as a means to search for evidence of an electric dipole moment to test for violation of parity and time reversal symmetry.…”