Heidelberg 2015 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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MO: Fachverband Molekülphysik
MO 14: Cold Molecules 2
MO 14.5: Vortrag
Mittwoch, 25. März 2015, 15:45–16:00, PH/HS1
Zeeman deceleration of metastable helium and nitrogen atoms — •Katrin Dulitz, Jutta Toscano, Atreju Tauschinsky, and Timothy P. Softley — Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, Chemistry Research Laboratory, 12 Mansfield Road, Oxford, OX1 3TA, UK
Zeeman deceleration is an experimental technique in which strong inhomogeneous magnetic fields inside an array of solenoid coils are used to manipulate the velocity of a supersonic beam of paramagnetic atoms or molecules [1,2].
We present experimental results that demonstrate, for the first time, the Zeeman deceleration of helium atoms in the metastable 23S1 state and nitrogen atoms in the metastable 2D5/2 state. Using an electron-impact source and a short, 12-stage Zeeman decelerator, we achieve an up to 40 % decrease in the kinetic energy of the metastable helium beam [3]. In a proof-of-principle experiment with metastable nitrogen atoms, we achieve deceleration from 460 m/s to 410 m/s. We also show that the pulse duration for electron-impact excitation needs to be matched to the acceptance of the decelerator in order to obtain a good contrast between the decelerated and undecelerated parts of the beam.
N. Vanhaecke et al., Phys. Rev. A 75, 031402 (2007).
[2] E. Narevicius et al., Phys. Rev. A 77, 051401 (2008).
[3] K. Dulitz, A. Tauschinsky, T. P. Softley, submitted.