Trapping ultracold dysprosium: a highly magnetic gas for dipolar physics

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the first laser cooling and trapping of ultracold dysprosium atoms, revealing their potential for exploring highly magnetic quantum gases and dipolar physics with novel collisional behaviors.

Contribution

It reports the first laser cooling and trapping of dysprosium without a repumper and characterizes inelastic collisions in a highly magnetic atomic system.

Findings

Successful trapping of half a billion Dy atoms.

Measurement of inelastic collision rates at ultracold temperatures.

Observation of intra-MOT sub-Doppler cooled atom stripes.

Abstract

Ultracold dysprosium gases, with a magnetic moment ten times that of alkali atoms and equal only to terbium as the most magnetic atom, are expected to exhibit a multitude of fascinating collisional dynamics and quantum dipolar phases, including quantum liquid crystal physics. We report the first laser cooling and trapping of half a billion Dy atoms using a repumper-free magneto-optical trap (MOT) and continuously loaded magnetic confinement, and we characterize the trap recycling dynamics for bosonic and fermionic isotopes. The first inelastic collision measurements in the few partial wave, 100 uK to 1 mK, regime are made in a system possessing a submerged open electronic f-shell. In addition, we observe unusual stripes of intra-MOT <10 uK sub-Doppler cooled atoms.