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