A Moving Magnetic Trap Decelerator: a New Source for Cold Atoms and Molecules

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel moving magnetic trap decelerator that effectively slows paramagnetic atoms and molecules from supersonic beams to near rest, significantly improving phase space density over existing methods.

Contribution

The authors experimentally realize a moving magnetic trap decelerator capable of efficiently slowing paramagnetic particles, including atoms and molecules, to near zero velocity.

Findings

Decelerated neon atoms reach near rest velocities.

Phase space volume improves by two orders of magnitude.

Method effectively traps and decelerates a large fraction of the beam.

Abstract

We present an experimental realization of a moving magnetic trap decelerator, where paramagnetic particles entrained in a cold supersonic beam are decelerated in a co-moving magnetic trap. Our method allows for an efficient slowing of both paramagnetic atoms and molecules to near stopping velocities. We show that under realistic conditions we will be able to trap and decelerate a large fraction of the initial supersonic beam. We present our first results on deceleration in a moving magnetic trap by bringing metastable neon atoms to near rest. Our estimated phase space volume occupied by decelerated particles at final velocity of 50 m/s shows an improvement of two orders of magnitude as compared to currently available deceleration techniques.