Progress towards alkaline-earth fermions in a 1D uniform potential

POSTER

Abstract

We present our progress towards realizing a 1D uniform "box trap" potential for degenerate fermionic alkaline-earth atoms in order to study highly symmetric SU(N) spin models. Our experiment first generates a degenerate gas of $^{87}$Sr atoms via evaporation in a crossed dipole trap. Next, we plan to load the atoms into an array of 1D box traps formed by a red-detuned 2D optical lattice and blue-detuned end-caps. The end-caps are generated by direct imaging of a digital micromirror device (DMD), which gives us dynamic control of the potential. We report initial characterization of the blue traps and heating rate measurements.

Authors

  • Benjamin J. Reschovsky

    • JQI, University of Maryland and NIST, College Park, MD, 20742
    • JQI, University of Maryland and NIST, College Park, MD 20742

  • Daniel S. Barker

    • JQI, University of Maryland and NIST, College Park, MD, 20742
    • JQI, University of Maryland and NIST, College Park, MD 20742

  • Neal C. Pisenti

    • JQI, University of Maryland and NIST, College Park, MD, 20742
    • JQI, University of Maryland and NIST, College Park, MD 20742

  • Gretchen Campbell

    • JQI, University of Maryland and NIST, College Park, MD, 20742
    • Joint Quantum Institute, University of Maryland and NIST
    • JQI, University of Maryland and NIST, College Park, MD 20742
    • Joint Quantum Institute, NIST and UMD
    • University of Maryland