"Structural features underlying the dynamics of supercooled dynamics"
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Atom lasers, coherent beams of matter originating from Bose-Einstein
Condensates (BEC), are one of the most prominent demonstrations of matter
wave optics. They have been proposed as coherent atom sources for
matter-wave interferometry and direct atom lithography. Atom lasers are
generated by coupling atoms from a trapped BEC into free-space using either
a weak RF field [1] or a weak Bragg beam [2].
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In this talk I will present a novel type of output coupling of an atom-laser
from a BEC, which uses a strong RF field to create a Time-varying Adiabatic
Potential (TAP) in a magnetic IoēPritchared trap. In combination with
gravity, the TAP opens a small hole is created in the very bottom of the trap
from which the atom-beam is allowed to escape. The TAP atom laser avoids
the flux limits of the traditional laser based on weak coupling. This allowed
us to demonstrate an increase in flux by more than one order of magnitude to
7.10^7 atoms/s, whilst preserving some of the lowest divergences reported
so far (6 mrad) [3]. The TAP also allowed us to generate thermal atom
beams with record temperatures as low as 300 nK at a peak flux of up to
3.10^8 atoms/s.
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In this talk I will discuss the generation and limits of the TAP atom laser.
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References:
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[1] I. Bloch, T.W. ansch, and T. Esslinger, Atom Laser With a CW Output
Coupler, Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 3008 (1999).
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[2] E.W. Hagley et al. A Well-Collimated Quasi-Continuous Atom Laser, Science
283, 1706 (1999).
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[3] N.P. Robins et al. Achieving Peak Brightness in an Atom Laser, Phys. Rev.
Lett. 96 140403 (2006) and J.E. Debs et al. Experimental comparison
of Raman and rf outcouplers for high flux atom lasers, Phys. Rev. A 81,
013618 (2010).