Fast production of large 23Na Bose-Einstein condensates in an optically plugged magnetic quadrupole trap

TL;DR

This paper presents a rapid method for producing large 23Na Bose-Einstein condensates using an optically plugged magnetic quadrupole trap, achieving high atom numbers efficiently.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach of slightly displacing the plug beam to generate a stable trapping potential, enabling fast condensate production with detailed loss and heating analysis.

Findings

Achieved Bose-Einstein condensates with 10^7 atoms every 17 seconds.

Measured Majorana loss rates and heating rates with and without plugging.

Numerical study of evaporation dynamics in a plugged linear trap.

Abstract

We demonstrate a fast production of large 23Na Bose-Einstein condensates in an optically plugged, magnetic quadrupole trap. A single global minimum of the trapping potential is generated by slightly displacing the plug beam from the center of the quadrupole field. With a dark magneto-optical trap and a simple rf evaporation, our system produces a condensate with N = 10^7 atoms every 17 s. The Majorana loss rates and the resultant heating rates for various temperatures are measured with and without plugging. The average energy of a spin-flipped atom is almost linearly proportional to temperature and determined to be about 60% of the average energy of a trapped atom. We present a numerical study of the evaporation dynamics in a plugged linear trap.