Nonlinear dynamics of a cold Ytterbium cloud in a cavity optical lattice

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• Tristán Valenzuela Salazar (ICFO, Barcelona)
• Friday 10 September 2010, 14:00-15:00
• Physics East 217.

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We report on the latest results obtained from our cold atom experiment at ICFO .

In first place, we present a technique which allows fast and non-destructive temperature measurement of a cold cloud of two-electrons atoms. The method is based on the analysis of excitation spectra obtained by probing the 1S0->3P1 transition of cold Ytterbium atoms trapped in a Magneto-Optical Trap. In the experiment, about 10⁷ atoms (174Yb) are trapped and cooled in a MOT operating on the 1S0->1P1 transition (MOT wavelength=399nm, line width=2pi · 28MHz). We show how the sample temperature can be determined on a relatively short time-scale (1ms) without affecting the MOT operation. This method allows us to calibrate the local trap light intensity [1].

In the second part, we report on the observation of non-linear mechanical coupling of the cavity mode with the cold atomic ensemble. In a typical experiment, about 1% of the cold cloud is overlapped to the mode of a high finesse optical cavity (N=10⁴). The cavity is tuned close to the 1S0->3P1 inter-combination transition of Ytterbium. The cooperativity which can be achieved in the experiment is C=N x g02/(kappa gamma)}= N · 0.085, being kappa=2pi·70kHz the cavity linewidth, gamma=2pi · 182kHz the transition linewidth and g0=2pi · 30kHz the coupling constant. The cavity transmission lineshapes observed in the experiment indicate the presence of a coupling between the atomic external degrees of freedom and the intra-cavity field intensity. These experiments represents the first step in our way to the implementation of cavity cooling schemes.

[1] Phys. Rev. A 81 , 063416 (2010)

This talk is part of the Cold Atoms series.

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