Collisional cooling of ultra-cold atom ensembles

ORAL

Abstract

We study a new cooling mechanism, collisional cooling, which capitalizes on the energy selectivity of inelastic scattering in a Feshbach resonance. We study this mechanism by simulating an ensemble of fermionic atoms in the quantum degenerate regime in the presence of such a resonance via a quantum kinetic approach. We find that by tuning the resonance energy appropriately, the temperature of the system can be lowered to a temperature comparable to the width of the resonance, and that thermalization is achieved through elastic scattering, which is also strongly enhanced due to the presence of the resonance.

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Authors

  • Ludwig Mathey

    NIST, Gaithersburg, and JQI, UMD

  • Eite Tiesinga

    NIST, Gaithersburg, Joint Quantum Institute/NIST, National Institute of Standards and Technology

  • Paul Julienne

    NIST. Gaithersburg, National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST

  • Charles Clark

    National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland, NIST, Gaithersburg, National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, NIST, Gaithersburg, MD, Joint Quantum Institute, NIST and University of Maryland, Gaithersburg, MD