Buffer-gas-cooled ion clouds in a classical Paul trap: superimposed stability diagrams and trapping capacity investigations

Ion clouds of different species and variable size are stored in a 3D Paul trap and detected after extraction from the trap. We report on measurements of the superimposed stability regions of four simultaneously stored ion species. We determine the operating conditions for trapping capacity under variation of buffer gas pressure and observe space charge shifts for a specific ion in the presence of other elements.     

Paul阱中两个超冷离子的量子统计特性

讨论两个囚禁在Ｐａｕｌ阱的对称轴上的超冷离子的量子统计特性，可以发现，它们的稳定囚禁不仅与阱的稳定区有关，而且与它们自身的自旋和电荷数大小有关。     

Paul阱中离子运动及稳定性分析

Paul离子阱由于没有外加磁场所引起的塞曼效应的影响,已成为离子存储及研究离子的重要装置.根据在实验中所采用的Paul离子阱结构及电场分布特点,列出阱内离子运动方程并进行求解,对其中各种运动进行分析,同时还分析了离子存储稳定性.最后对所作的研究进行总结,得到如下结论:阱中离子的运动为谐振运动、基频微运动和高阶微振动.     

Mass-selective trapping of pulsed charged particle beams

The phase-space method is used to evaluate the mass-selective ion confinement properties of the radio-frequency (rf) quadrupole ion trap with phase-synchronized switching-on of the driving rf field for pulsed ion injection from an external source. The results are of interest for on-line investigations of both short-lived isotopes and stable highly charged ions. In particular, singly charged ions with an energy of 10 eV and a mass in the neighborhood of 100 amu, injected along the gap or through an aperture on one of the electrodes, are considered. Mass-selective storage of the injected ions is possible for any trap operation point within the stability region by allowing a field-free drift distance before ion injection. It is shown that after appropriate scaling the results apply to the trapping of any pulsed beam of charged particles.     

Electron attachment to anionic clusters in ion traps

Ion traps are versatile tools for the investigation of gas-phase cluster ions, allowing, e.g., cluster-size selection and extended reaction times. Taking advantage of their particular storage capability of simultaneous trapping of electrons and clusters, Penning traps have been applied for the production of clusters with high negative charge states. Recently, linear radio-frequency quadrupole traps have been demonstrated to be another candidate to produce polyanionic clusters. Operation with rectangular, rather than harmonic, radio-frequency voltages provides field-free time slots for unhindered electron passage through the trap. Several aspects of electron-attachment techniques by means of Penning and radio-frequency traps are addressed and recent experimental results are presented.     

Antimatter plasmas in a multipole trap for antihydrogen

We have demonstrated storage of plasmas of the charged constituents of the antihydrogen atom, antiprotons and positrons, in a Penning trap surrounded by a minimum-B magnetic trap designed for holding neutral antiatoms. The neutral trap comprises a superconducting octupole and two superconducting, solenoidal mirror coils. We have measured the storage lifetimes of antiproton and positron plasmas in the combined Penning-neutral trap, and compared these to lifetimes without the neutral trap fields. The magnetic well depth was 0.6 T, deep enough to trap ground state antihydrogen atoms of up to about 0.4 K in temperature. We have demonstrated that both particle species can be stored for times long enough to permit antihydrogen production and trapping studies.     

Stability and Collective Excitation of Two-Dimensional BECs with Two- and Three-Body Interactions in an Anharmonic Trap

The stability and collective excitation of Bose-Einstein condensates with both two- and three-body interactions in a two-dimensional anhaxmonic trap （i.e., harmonic plus quartic trap） are investigated. By using the variational method, the influence of the three-body interaction and the anharmonicity on the stability axe discussed in detail. It is found that the anhaxmonicity of the trap and the three-body interaction have significant effect on the stability and collective excitations of the system.     

Quantum memory with optically trapped atoms

We report the experimental demonstration of quantum memory for collective atomic states in a far-detuned optical dipole trap. Generation of the collective atomic state is heralded by the detection of a Raman scattered photon and accompanied by storage in the ensemble of atoms. The optical dipole trap provides confinement for the atoms during the quantum storage while retaining the atomic coherence. We probe the quantum storage by cross correlation of the photon pair arising from the Raman scattering and the retrieval of the atomic state stored in the memory. Nonclassical correlations are observed for storage times up to 60 mus.     

Optical trap with spatially varying polarization: application in controlled orientation of birefringent microscopic particle(s)

We report the use of the interference of two orthogonally polarized beams for generation of an optical trap with spatially varying polarization. The spatial variation of polarization in the optical trap has been used for demonstration of simultaneous rotation or orientation of multiple microscopic birefringent particles. Other potential applications of an optical trap with spatially varying polarization are also discussed.This revised version was published online in August 2005 with a corrected cover date.     

Annealing Effect on Chain Segment Motion and Charge Trapping and Detrapping in Nylon 1010

The chain segment motion and charge trapping and detrapping in nylon 1010 films were investigated by means of thermally stimulated depolarization current (TSDC). There were three current peaks (named α, ρ1, and ρ2 peaks, respectively) in the experimental TSDC spectra above room temperature. The α peak is attributed to a background dipole relaxation by the motion of chain segments and space charge contribution, the ρ1 peak is originated from a space charge trapped in the bulk amorphous regions and the interphase between crystalline and amorphous regions, the ρ2 peak is originated from space charge trapped in crystalline regions. By analyzing the characteristic parameters of these peaks, it was found that with in increase of the degree of crystallinity the activation energy of the a peak increased from 1.12 to 1.22 eV and the trap depth of the ρ2 peak increased from 2.70 to 2.82 eV, while the trap depth of the ρ1 peak decreased from 1.50 to 1.29 eV. Annealing induced a decrease of the chain segment mobility and promoted the creation of traps in nylon 1010. Annealing also decreased the stability of the trapped charges in the bulk amorphous and the interphase regions and increased the stability of the trapped charges in the crystalline regions.     

Photoassociative ionization of Na inside a storage ring

Motivated by recent interest in low dimensional arrays of atoms, we experimentally investigated the way cold collisional processes are affected by the geometry of the considered atomic sample. More specifically, we studied the case of photoassociative ionization (PAI) both in a storage ring where collision is more unidirectional in character and in a trap with clear undefinition of collision axis. First, creating a ring shaped trap (atomotron) we investigated two-color PAI dependence with intensity and polarization of a probing laser. The intensity dependence of the PAI rate was also measured in a magneto-optical trap presenting equivalent temperature and density conditions. Indeed, the results show that in the ring trap, the value of the PAI rate constant is much lower and does not show evidences of saturation, unlike in the case of the 3D-MOT. Cold atomic collisions in storage ring may represent new possibilities for study.     

Storage and adiabatic cooling of polar molecules in a microstructured trap

We present a versatile electric trap for the exploration of a wide range of quantum phenomena in the interaction between polar molecules. The trap combines tunable fields, homogeneous over most of the trap volume, with steep gradient fields at the trap boundary. An initial sample of up to 10(8), CH(3)F molecules is trapped for as long as 60 s, with a 1/e storage time of 12 s. Adiabatic cooling down to 120 mK is achieved by slowly expanding the trap volume. The trap combines all ingredients for opto-electrical cooling, which, together with the extraordinarily long storage times, brings field-controlled quantum-mechanical collision and reaction experiments within reach.     

Laser imaging system for determination of three-dimensional scalar gradients in turbulent flames

An imaging system for the measurement of three-dimensional (3D) scalar gradients in turbulent hydrocarbon flames is described. Combined line imaging of Raman scattering, Rayleigh scattering, and CO laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) allows for simultaneous single-shot line measurements of major species, temperature, mixture fraction, and a one-dimensional surrogate of scalar dissipation rate in hydrocarbon flames, while simultaneous use of two crossed, planar LIF measurements of OH allows for determination of instantaneous flame orientation. In this manner the full 3D scalar dissipation can be estimated in some regions of a turbulent flame on a single-shot basis.     

Unconventional trapping of ultracold neutrons

In unconventional storage experiments we filled ultracold neutrons (UCN) into a Fomblin-grease coated trap and then immediately removed the UCN from the storage volume by an absorber, until their residual density in the trap was measured to be negligible. When subsequently the absorber was withdrawn a significant number of UCN of higher energies emerged from the trap. Their appearance cannot be attributed to heating or cooling of residual UCN. Further experiments were performed to investigate the origin of these UCN which we call `late UCN'. We noticed that application of a magnetic field gradient at the trap wall as well as a replacement of Fomblin grease on the surface by Fomblin oil gave rise to small but measurable alterations of storage behavior. These phenomena are consistent with the hypothesis of temporary adhesion of a few UCN to a rough wall.     

Neutron lifetime and the background structure in a neutron magnetic trap

A new cycle of processing the 1985–1986 experimental data concerning the storage of neutrons in a magnetic gravitational trap was carried out. It was shown that the count rates determined for the background are multiples of the neutron decay constant. This is explained by the fact that the background in the experiment on the storage of ultracold neutrons was caused by the electron count from background neutrons penetrating through trap walls. Numerous measurements for a small and varying number of background neutrons in the trap make it possible to extract and use data for determining the mean neutron lifetime. This lifetime turns out to be τtn=900.01±0.15 s in a nonuniform magnetic field.     

The stability of Bose--Einstein condensates in a two-dimensional shallow trap

The stability of Bose--Einstein condensates (BECs) loaded into a two-dimensional shallow harmonic potential well is studied. By using the variational method, the ground state properties for interacting BECs in the shallow trap are discussed. It is shown that the possible stable bound state can exist. The depth of the shallow well plays an important role in stabilizing the BECs. The stability of BECs in the shallow trap with the periodic modulating of atom interaction by using the Feshbach resonance is also discussed. The results show that the collapse and diffusion of BECs in a shallow trap can be controlled by the temporal modulation of the scattering length.     

Resonator-enhanced optical dipole trap for fermionic lithium atoms

We demonstrate a novel optical dipole trap that is based on enhancement of the optical power density of a Nd:YAG laser beam in a resonator. The trap is particularly suited for experiments with ultracold gases, as it combines a potential depth of the order of 1 mK with storage times of several tens of seconds. We study the interactions in a gas of fermionic lithium atoms in our trap and observe the influence of spin-changing collisions and off-resonant photon scattering. A key element in reaching long storage times is the use of an ultralow-noise laser. The dependence of storage time on laser noise is investigated.     

Storage of an electron plasma in a sextupole radial antihydrogen trap

This work reports for the first time experimental data obtained with electrons stored in a Penning–Malmberg trap surrounded by a sextupole radial magnetic field. This trap geometry is one of the candidates for trapping antihydrogen atoms in the place where they are produced starting from cold antiprotons and positrons or positronium. The measurements show that electron plasmas with parameters matching the range used for positrons and electrons in the antihydrogen experiments (number of particles ranging from few 10⁶ up to several 10⁷ and densities of the order of 10⁸–10⁹ cm⁻³, radius of the order of 1–2 mm) can be transported with 100% efficiency in a trap region that simultaneously confines completely the charged particles and the neutral antihydrogen in the radial plane. Inside this trap plasma storage times of the order of several tens of seconds up to some hundreds of seconds are measured. The plasma storage times are consistent with those needed for antihydrogen production; however the increase of the plasma temperature due to the expansion is not negligible; the consequences of this effect on the antihydrogen trapping are outlined.     

Dynamics of a single particle in a Paul trap in the presence of the damping force

The motion of a single charged particle in a Paul trap in the presence of the damping force is investigated theoretically and the modified stability diagrams in the parameter space are calculated. The results show that the stable regions in thea–q parameter plane are not only enlarged but also shifted. Consequently, the damping force causes instability in some cases, contrary to intuition. As a by-product of the calculation, we derive new theoretical approximate expressions for the secular-oscillation frequency. In the limiting case of no damping, these formulas are in good agreement with early measurements done by Wuerker et al.     

Magnetostatic traps for charged and neutral particles

We have constructed magnetostatic traps from permanent magnets for trapping charged and neutral atoms. Two storage experiments are presented: a compact Penning trap for light ions and magnetic trapping of single neutral atoms. The dynamics of cold neutral atoms and their loss mechanisms in a quadrupole magnetostatic trap are discussed. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.