Bose-Einstein condensation by polarization gradient laser cooling

Attempts to create quantum degenerate gases without evaporative cooling have been pursued since the early days of laser cooling, with the consensus that polarization gradient cooling (PGC, also known as "optical molasses") alone cannot reach condensation. In the present work, we report tha...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2023-12
Main Authors: Xu, Wenchao, Šumarac, Tamara, Qiu, Emily H, Peters, Matthew L, Cantú, Sergio H, Li, Zeyang, Menssen, Adrian J, Lukin, Mikhail D, Colombo, Simone, Vuletić, Vladan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bose-Einstein condensates
Dimpling
Dipoles
Evaporative cooling
Laser cooling
Machine learning
Polarization
Space density
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Summary:Attempts to create quantum degenerate gases without evaporative cooling have been pursued since the early days of laser cooling, with the consensus that polarization gradient cooling (PGC, also known as "optical molasses") alone cannot reach condensation. In the present work, we report that simple PGC can generate a small Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) inside a corrugated micrometer-sized optical dipole trap. The experimental parameters enabling BEC creation were found by machine learning, which increased the atom number by a factor of 5 and decreased the temperature by a factor of 2.5, corresponding to almost two orders of magnitude gain in phase space density. When the trapping light is slightly misaligned through a microscopic objective lens, a BEC of \(\sim 250\) \(^{87}\)Rb atoms is formed inside a local dimple within 40 ms of PGC.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2312.07708