Sympathetic cooling in a mixture of diamagnetic and paramagnetic atoms

S Tassy (1) , N Nemitz (1) , F Baumer (1) , C Höhl (1) , A Batär (1) , A Görlitz (1)

1 Institut fur Experimentalphysik

We have experimentally realized a hybrid trap for ultracold paramagnetic rubidium and diamagnetic ytterbium atoms by combining a bichromatic optical dipole trap for ytterbium with a Ioffe-Pritchard-type magnetic trap for rubidium. In this hybrid trap, we have investigated sympathetic cooling for five different ytterbium isotopes through elastic collisions with rubidium. A strong dependence of the thermalization rate on the mass of the specific ytterbium isotope was observed.

Mots clés: ultracold collisions; sympathetic cooling; atom trapping; ytterbium

S Tassy, N Nemitz, F Baumer, C Höhl, A Batär, et al.. Sympathetic cooling in a mixture of diamagnetic and paramagnetic atoms. Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, 2010, 43 (20), pp.205309. ⟨10.1088/0953-4075/43/20/205309⟩. ⟨hal-00569854⟩