Cold and trapped metastable noble gases

TL;DR

This paper reviews the unique experimental and theoretical aspects of cold, trapped metastable noble gases, highlighting their detection, collision processes, and applications in atom optics, statistical physics, and precision measurements.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the distinctive features and experimental techniques specific to metastable noble gases, differentiating from general cold atom research.

Findings

Unique detection techniques for metastable atoms

Collision processes specific to metastable states

Applications in atom optics and precision measurements

Abstract

We review experimental and theoretical work on cold, trapped metastable noble gases. We em- phasize the aspects which distinguish work with these atoms from the large body of work on cold, trapped atoms in general. These aspects include detection techniques and collision processes unique to metastable atoms. We describe several experiments exploiting these unique features in fields including atom optics and statistical physics. We also discuss precision measurements on these atoms including fine structure splittings, isotope shifts, and atomic lifetimes.